01732 759725 32 branch – the most successful within what became GE Capital’s IT Solutions business. TR: Did you get into IT by accident or design? JA: I was very lucky to go to a high school that got a grant from NASA in 1990 to put computers and Internet into our school. That sparked my interest, so when I graduated I studied Business with a focus on Management Information Systems. But as the story above shows – it was a bit planned and a bit by accident. TR: How did you get involved with IGEL and what was it about the company that appealed to you? JA: In 2016, I was involved with an executive team that sold AppSense to LANDESK (now ivanti) when I got a call from IGEL looking for someone to help them with marketing and entering the North American market for the third time. Initially, it didn’t really appeal. IGEL was hardware, VDI and nearly all the business was in Germany. But after looking at the technology, I realised it was really an amazing software story but trapped inside a thin client German message. I also met the founder and some of the employees and partners and realised there was something very special about the culture of the company which is built on integrity, trust, partnership and innovation. TR: What have been the highlights of your tenure as CEO so far? JA: IGEL has been the highlight of my professional career. Initially, it was the success we had refocusing the message on software and bringing the LINUX OS and management platform to North America and winning huge deals in the largest hospitals, retailers, banks and government agencies. Secondly, driving the transformation from hardware to software and from no recurring revenue to perpetual licensing to now subscription. We’ve built a global software company over the past 7 years which has had a major impact in the EUC (end user computing) space with 2.5 million seats under management, 450 employees, hundreds of invested resellers and an unrivalled technical ecosystem with IGEL Ready. Very importantly, IGEL OS is now shipping preloaded on endpoint devices from the factories of leading manufactures including HP, Lenovo and LG. TR: What do you hope to achieve at IGEL in the future? JA: I believe IGEL will continue to play a major role as enterprises transition to a Cloud PC. Just as datacentres have moved to the cloud, endpoints will move to a cloud-first model for consumption of apps and data. The winning OS for these Cloud PC endpoints will be the one that is secure, easy to manage and delivers a great end user experience. IGEL has an opportunity to play a major role in helping organisations make this transition. TR: What excites you most about working in IT today? JA: IT is a gift, in that it is driving humanity forward and there is always something new and disruptive happening in our industry. Today it is about AI and how this will change how we live, play and learn. I’m excited to see that one of the first places people will experience AI will be from a Cloud PC as they search, write documents, build presentations and create spreadsheets. Technology Reseller (TR): What was your first job in IT? Jed Ayres (JA): In 1995, I was studying for an MBA and living in San Francisco when a family friend got in touch. He was the President of AmeriData Technologies, a large computer reseller, and he needed an IT-savvy intern for the summer to work on migrating their whole paper-based product catalogue to the Internet and introducing order tracking. The catalogue listed everything they sold, like PCs, monitors and peripherals, along with pricing. It ran to literally hundreds of pages. As a courtesy, I went to the interview but turned them down as I really didn’t fancy working in their offices in nearby Sacramento. I’d also just got a job at Perry’s, one of the coolest bars in town which I thought would be much more fun for a young man new to the big City. He wouldn’t let me fob him off though and called back to tell me “No isn’t the answer. I’ve got you lodgings and you’re taking this job”. So, I ended up doing both – weekends at the bar and weekdays at AmeriData. Later, after graduating, I joined the company as an inside sales rep. The business was subsequently sold to GE Capital Services in 1996 and by 24 years of age I was managing a $60 million 60 seconds 60 seconds with... Jed Ayres, Chief Executive Officer, IGEL Technology Jed Ayres
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