Member Article

Tech high-flyer lands at cloud specialist Vapour

Disruptive cloud technology firm Vapour has made its latest senior hire.

Experienced industry professional Glenn Ollivant has joined the team as senior account director, exactly 15 years after he was first hired and trained by Vapour boss Tim Mercer.

Glenn switched from selling stainless steel to circuits back in October 2006, when Tim – then regional sales manager at Virgin Media Business (formerly TeleWest) – saw his potential. He quickly found his feet in the tech sector, progressing up the ranks at Virgin, before moving on to enterprise sales roles at Kcom and TalkTalk Business.

Departing as TalkTalk’s technology and UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) specialist, his name remains firmly in the record books having secured what is still one of the company’s largest ever deals.

And now he’s back working alongside some familiar faces, including Vapour’s head of transformation and operations Carol McGrotty, and sales manager Alec Stephens - who also propelled their careers following long stints at Virgin.

Things may have come full circle for Glenn in terms of his team mates, but the opportunity firmly represents his most exciting move yet, he believes.

“I’ve watched the Vapour journey with utmost respect for what Tim and the team have done,” commented Glenn. “We all knew the market wasn’t ready for a pure cloud offering when Vapour was launched in 2013. But the ambition, drive and foresight means that bold leap is now paying off - especially because organisations’ adoption of cloud tech has rocketed over the past 18 months.

“Working both with partners and now directly with end customers too – on more conventional solutions such as Unified Communications and backups, as well as cutting-edge virtual desktop infrastructures, secure networks for hybrid working, and even robotic process automation – this is absolutely the right next step for me. I’ve set myself bold targets, never mind the goals that have been outlined as part of my role!”

Glenn’s appointment represents the latest senior hire for Vapour, in the year the company rebranded and evolved its toolkit to include next generation cloud tech, far beyond its traditional voice, networks and storage mainstay.

With the company pushing for 20% revenue growth by the end of 2022, Glenn’s appointment will prove critical to the expansion of the firm’s new and existing business pipeline – not to mention the market better understanding what Vapour 2.0 can do.

“People of Glenn’s calibre don’t come along every day,” admitted CEO Tim Mercer. “I know – I mentored him! But the time is right for us to join forces once again, not least because the market is opening up again and we have the same attitude when it comes to supporting customers. His quality of service is outstanding, and he knows exactly what you can achieve in organisations if you’re agile, inquisitive and collaborative.”

“I’m really excited by Vapour’s tech stack,” added Glenn. “We can transform customers’ resilience and productivity, even with some simple tweaks to their infrastructure. And that energises me.

“That, and Vapour’s culture. I want to put some vibrancy back into my career.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Mallinson .