24 01732 759725 60 seconds with… Pete Hannah, Sales Chief of Object First, a provider of on-premises backup storage for Veeam users Pete Hannah has more than 30 years’ experience building and scaling go-tomarket organisations for technology vendors, distributors and resellers, including such well-known names as Netgear, TD SYNNEX and BT. He is founder of the Noima Consultancy and Level Up, and in September 2023 joined Object First to implement its GTM channel strategy in EMEA. In August 2024, he was appointed VP of Sales, Western Europe. Object First’s Ootbi appliances, standing for Out-of-the-Box-Immutability, protect organisations of all sizes from ransomware through a combination of superfast backups, instant recovery and Zero Access, which prevents anyone, even those with admin credentials, from altering or deleting backup data. Last year was the company’s second consecutive year of triple-digit growth. Highlights include a 183% year-on-year increase in global bookings for Ootbi appliances (up 515% in EMEA); a 193% year-on-year increase in customer numbers; a 215% year-on-year expansion of its partner community, with the recruitment of dozens of new partners including Softcat and Insight in the UK; and the launch of a new consumptionbased subscription model in Europe, complementing existing CapEx options. What have been your business highlights of the last 12 months? Seeing our partner growth over the last year has been huge. We’ve moved from ‘early believers’ to a much broader base of partners who now see immutability and ransomware resilience as a must-have, not a nice-to-have. Alongside that, seeing the Northern European sales and partner teams develop and evolve has been another major highlight. What is currently having the greatest impact on your business? Two things: ransomware and complexity. Organisations are being relentlessly targeted, and they’re tired of bolt-on band‑aids that impact not just systems, but people. That’s pushing demand for simple, resilient solutions that just get the job done – which is exactly where we live. What recent business win are you most proud of? It’s rarely the single ‘big logo’ for me – it’s when a partner goes from cautious first deal to building a real pipeline with us. Recently we had a partner move from a small initial order to positioning us as their default ransomware-resilient backup target. That shift in mindset is the real win because it means we’ve earned trust, not just revenue. Where do you see the next big opportunity for your channel partners? Helping customers de-risk their ransomware recovery strategy without making everything more complicated and expensive. There’s a big opportunity for partners who can translate ‘immutability’ and ‘resilience’ into something a CISO, CFO and a cyber insurer can all understand. Partners who can join those dots – technology, governance and cyber insurance – will do very well. Did you get into IT by accident or design? I really wanted to be an architect. I loved technical drawing and design but my physics teacher convinced me that ‘electronics’ was the future (this significantly ages me!), so I did an electronics degree at university and, well, here we are. Thank you, Mr Stemplis. If you could swap your current job for any other what would it be? My sister-in-law is an architect; I live my alternative career vicariously through her! Right now, though, I’m so excited and motivated by the future with Object First that I honestly wouldn’t swap it, even for the dream job. Which business leader do you most admire and why? I’ve always admired leaders who mix high standards with humility – the ones who stay engaged and stay curious and aren’t afraid to be honest when something needs fixing. At Object First, I’m fortunate to work with a leadership team that operates that way. They’re knowledgeable, invested and genuinely care about building something that lasts. I wouldn’t say this lightly: they’re one of the strongest leadership teams I’ve worked with in my career – and that comes down to clarity, integrity and the willingness to make tough calls without losing the human side. What’s the best bit of business advice you’ve been given? The best advice I’ve been given is that ‘perfect’ is rarely the goal – progress is. As someone with a mildly overactive inner critic, this was a painful revelation. But once I stopped trying to fix everything all at once and focused on the handful of things that actually move the mission forward, everything got clearer – decisions, leadership, even the 1:1s. It turns out you get far more done when you stop trying to be flawless and start trying to be effective…which, annoyingly, is much harder than perfection. 60 SECONDS Pete Hannah
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