In our Partner Hot seat this month we have Keith Andrew Ali, Managing Director at Creative ITC. He tells us 5 things that he does in his job everyday, what his ultimate comfort food is and the best piece of advice he has ever received, among many more of our burning questions.
How many years have you been working in the industry?
More than I like to remind myself I started in IT at the age of 16 and have performed various End User Ops, Vendor and Partner roles over the past 25 years
What’s the first thing you do each morning?
Let my 2 Labrador dogs out into the garden then feed them
Tell us five things you do every day in your role
- Speak to my Sales Managers
- Speak to my Business Partner
- Speak to my Finance Director
- Drink way too much coffee
- Try and delegate at least 1 of my never ending list of tasks
What’s your number one tip when it comes to dealing with customers?
Be yourself and be passionate with what you are about
Name one thing businesses tend to forget when implementing or upgrading their technology
The more you touch infrastructure the more that can go wrong… Long upgrade programs extend the risk & sometimes pain
What’s the number one pain point or concern your customers have?
Ensuring that IT serves the business at all times, doing major projects can sometimes feel like doing open heart surgery whilst walking down the street
What’s you favourite thing about your job?
Being the master of my own destiny
What’s the best thing about partnering with Cisco?
Having worked at Cisco in a senior Management role for 8 years I have amazing friends and colleagues there, coupled with an understanding of how to make a deal a win win for all parties & 99.9% of the people at Cisco are genuinely people I would socialise with outside of work.
Name one device or piece of technology you couldn’t live without
No Brainer… my iPhone
If you weren’t working in tech, what would you be doing?
Always fancied being an electrician, although I have electrocuted myself multiple times and once got thrown across a room, so maybe it’s a good job I am in Tech
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Everyone has Gremlins but as a conscious leader they stop paralysing you.
What helps you relax at the end of the day?
Is it bad if I say alcohol…although my dogs jumping on top of me rolling on the floor at home is a close second 😉
What’s your ultimate comfort food?
Poached egg on toast just makes me feel warm and fuzzy
Which actor would play you in a biopic of your life?
Interesting question, as the person I would chose would probably not be the directors choice as he would clearly want someone talk dark and handsome, let’s go with Antonio Banderas
If you could possess one superhero power, what would it be?
Teleportation, I’m always late for everything
First music single you bought?
Jermaine Stewart – We don’t have to take our clothes off and yes it was for a girl!
Apple or Android?
Apple
Who would you least like to be stuck on a desert island with?
Katie Hopkins, pretty sure I would end up taping her mouth up and leaving her tied to a tree in the jungle whilst I enjoyed a nice coconut milk and fish supper.
What’s your most-used smartphone app?
It’s a toss-up between Wunderlist and Whatsapp.
In your opinion, what’s the best tech innovation of the last 100 years?
The most important one was the integrated Circuit (Silicon Chip) as this has enabled our future to be a very different place but the best has got to be my 60” Curved UHD TV!
Authors