technologyreseller.co.uk 23 Slide is a security-first Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery (BCDR) company built exclusively for MSPs with an operating model aligned entirely around MSP success. Founded by Austin McChord, founder and former CEO of Datto, and Michael Fass, former Datto General Counsel & Chief People Officer, Slide is led by industry veterans with deep expertise in backup, disaster recovery and cybersecurity. Since launching in February 2025, it has grown to nearly 1,000 partners. Find out more at https://slide.tech and in the next issue of Technology Reseller. What have been your business highlights of the last 12 months? Certainly, seeing the expansion of Slide in the US! Since I rejoined Austin and Michael in February, it’s been great to understand how they have a) started bringing back the magic to the MSP community – building trust in how we engage with our partners; and b) experiencing just how Austin has modernised BCDR into an AI-enabled, high performance platform that has driven incredible results in its first year. What is currently having the greatest impact on your business? Come back to me in 6 months as we continue expanding in EMEA! What recent business win are you most proud of? Just this week, we have received the largest EMEA order to date, with an MSP trusting us with 70 of their clients. I have seen huge interest in and adoption of Slide’s BCDR. Feedback from their technical teams has been outstanding, and the commercial model (all month‑to‑month and no long-term contracts) has helped increase the flexibility MSPs can offer. Where do you see the next big opportunity for your channel partners? I would argue that offering a best in breed solution that also scales to 150TB devices (maybe higher, more to come!) will enable MSPs to extend services beyond their traditional SMB clients to enterprise customers and spend less time managing their backup fleets, helped by the support of a vendor that truly is in their corner. As Slide continues to build its portfolio, the prospect of true Identity Backup, wherever the data lives, will be an exciting opportunity for partners. Did you get into IT/comms by accident or design? Accident! I originally worked in Financial Services for tech companies, such as Dell, and loved the tech aspect more, so joined Cisco in around 2010. If you could swap your current job for any other what would it be? Anything adrenaline-based, which is exactly why I should remain in tech. Which business leader do you most admire and why? Probably the one who started a business in his own garage, built an organisation that sold for $6B 15 years later, and who managed to get the culture and values exactly right with his first company (clue: Datto was founded in 2007 and acquired by Kaseya for $6.2 billion in 2022 - Ed) What’s the best bit of business advice you’ve been given? Focus on adding value to your customer and not extracting value from your customer. In other words, do what’s right for the long-term and not what’s immediately profitable. What advice would you give a young person considering a career in IT? The right company will give you the opportunity to develop your talents. It’s always surprising how fast change happens and opportunities arise, so start by putting your heart into it, and work hard! What’s on your playlist at the moment? A Spotify playlist called Deep House 2026! What’s the most used app on your phone and why? Spotify, probably due to my children relentlessly switching it off. How do you like to spend your spare time? A combination of time outside with the family and our two German Pointers, whatever the Scottish weather brings, and, if I ever get a dry day with nothing to do, some time out on my 2002 Yamaha XJR1300. Favourite holiday destination? Italy. It’s never disappointed, be it long weekends in Venice or vineyard tours on mopeds in Tuscany. [email protected] Kester Brookes, Head of Account Management EMEA, Slide 60 seconds with… 60 SECONDS Kester Brookes
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