Watts steps into Gass role at Tech Data

Tech Data has shuffled its executive structure, giving staffer David Watts the chance to extend his UK & Ireland management role.

The distributor has promoted Watts to senior vice-president, UK & Ireland, stepping into the shoes that had been filled by Andy Gass, who is moving to a fresh role.

Gass will continue to be part of the European leadership team with a brief to focus all his attention on the channel player’s digital transformation efforts in the region.

Watts has been with Tech Data since 1998, joining the firm when it was still called Computer 2000 and worked his way up to become general manager of the PC division. He then spent some time at Samsung Electronics running its display division, but rejoined the distributor in 2007 as commercial director. Since 2018, he has been managing director of UK & Ireland.

Patrick Zammit, president, Europe at Tech Data, said Watts had shown in his stint as UK&I MD that he had the skills to lead the business.

“As managing director, UK&I, he has built strong relationships inside our business and throughout the UK and Ireland markets, while developing and empowering our high-performing team to better serve the needs of vendors, partners and end customers, something that I know will continue following this promotion,” said Zammit.

He also thanked Gass, who he said had “successfully developed and executed a differentiated, partner-centric and value-driven strategy, growing sales, market share and profitability to establish Tech Data as a leading distributor in UK and Ireland”.

Watts said the UK&I business was already focused on delivering the best support for partners, and that would continue. “Everyone at Tech Data is fully dedicated to helping our partners and suppliers to grow and develop their businesses while supporting them in addressing the many challenges they face, particularly at this time,” he said.

His predecessor, Gass, will have his hands full as he looks to embrace more digital technology to standardise and synchronise key business processes.

“Looking ahead, the wave of digital transformation happening across our industry brings huge opportunity for businesses to become more targeted, more personalised and more efficient,” he said. “Tech Data is set to be at the forefront of bringing these benefits to the IT channel and I’m very excited to be driving our strategy in this area.”