Judges

Though officially retired now after 46 years in the IT and Communications industry, John still moderates panels and leads discussions at major events including the prestigious Comms Vision Convention at Gleneagles and IT Europa’s Managed Services and Hosting Summit.

Kate is a HR performance and engagement specialist in the high growth tech sector with over 10 years' experience in the channel. As the former People Director of Virtual1,  she drove the company to be an award winning and best place to work. Now, the Founder and CEO of People Station - a place where you can subscribe to a People Director negating the need to employ one. She and her team work with ambitious companies to help leaders create award winning and high-performing cultures.

An accomplished People and Culture Director in the IT /Comms Channel (Chess and inTEC Group, AMS Group) Kate works with organisations driving employee engagement, ensuring teams feel valued whilst focused on business performance. Kate is a lively keynote speaker who has enjoyed speaking at many conferences across the world including Microsoft Inspire, Fortinet, CRN, Women of the Channel, HPE, BT, Comms Vision, Global HRD Summit and Google. Continually driving the Women in Tech agenda, Kate heads up WIT North

Nigel Sergent is Editorial Director at Comms Dealer magazine, the UK’s leading industry publication addressing the voice & data industry. Nigel’s career started at 17 in local and sports journalism. He worked on local and national titles before leaving the newspaper business to establish his own PR and marketing company operating in the technology sector. He then co-founded Comms Dealer in 1996 with a goal to inform, motivate and educate resellers operating in the rapidly developing independent telecoms sector. Since then, Comms Dealer has established itself as the ‘de facto’ thought leadership magazine for the ‘channel’ and as part of the BPL Business Media group has been instrumental in the launch of a series of educational networking events and the highly popular ‘Comms Vision’ industry summit.

Paul Cunningham is an accomplished leader and advisor in the global technology sector, focused on business strategy, product-led growth marketing, and corporate communications. Paul's extensive experience spans a wide range of business development disciplines with a particular focus on the software sector and the value of partnerships within it.
Currently Owner and Director of Blue Barn Consulting Ltd, Paul provides advisory, consulting, and coaching services to leaders of growing technology businesses in SaaS and partner-centric markets. He was formerly Executive Marketing Director, EMEA, at global technology distributor Ingram Micro, where he was responsible for marketing strategy and operations. Prior to that he was CMO of technology distributor Westcon-Comstor and Divisional CMO at Atos Unify.

Sara is a Revenue Operations & Channel Programs executive in the tech sector with over 30 years' experience in the channel. As the former Vice President of Global Revenue Operations at Mitel, she implemented the Channel Operations function ensuring ease of working with the channel and distributors and formerly worked across the Channel in the Channel Marketing area introducing Mitel’s Channel Programs & Incentives. Recipient of Women of the Channel 2023.