Brown to step down at Softcat as Hockin emerges at Arcserve

Softcat is preparing to bid farewell to its managing director, Colin Brown, who will step down at the end of its current fiscal year.

Brown will stay with the business until at least November to help with the transition, but will officially stop being MD at the end of July. Richard Wyn Griffith will take on the role from 1 August.

Wyn Griffith joined Softcat in 2002, and has had a number of roles at the reseller, including opening and developing its London office in 2010 and, most recently, as director of solutions, services and marketing.

CEO Graeme Watt praised the outgoing Brown, who has been managing director for seven years. His CV also includes time at Microsoft and Computacenter, where he was CEO of the firm’s German business for four years.

“Colin has given and achieved so much in his time at Softcat,” said Watt. “His decision to step down has not been an overnight one, and we have been planning this transition for some time since Colin initially signalled his intention.

“While we will be very sad to see Colin leave, Richard has gained the skills and expertise across many areas of our business in the past 18 years and he is the ideal person to take on this role. I would like to thank Colin for all his work and congratulate Richard on his new role.”

Meanwhile, another familiar name in the channel, Bruce Hockin, who most recently ran the storage operations at Cloud Distribution, has re-emerged at Arcserve.

The data protection player has appointed Hockin as its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) channel sales director, looking to take advantage of his experience not just at Cloud Distribution but also in a previous spell at Avnet.

“The IT industry in EMEA faces a unique set of challenges and opportunities ahead,” said Hockin. “Together with my team, we will build on trusted, mutually beneficial relationships with our channel partners, providing them with absolutely the right support and resources to allow them to focus on their own customers, especially right now.”

He said one of his first tasks would be setting out to grow the relationships with the vendor’s existing channel partner base.

Mick Bradley, EMEA vice-president of Arcserve, said the company had turned to Hockin at a time when it had plans to beef up its operations across the region. The vendor recently struck an alliance with Sophos in order to arm its partners with a more robust data protection and security proposition, including anti-ransomware.

“Bruce’s years of expertise will be invaluable for Arcserve as we continue to expand in the EMEA region,” said Bradley. “His unique skillset will enable us to enrich our current relationships while putting us in the best position to form new ones, and to service the rapidly evolving needs of today’s IT industry.”