Insight sales veep Akkerman resigns

Insight Enterprises veep of sales Olaf Akkerman has resigned less than a year after moving into the role. Sources close to the firm reckon he was pushed after a tough second calendar quarter, but this has been categorically denied by the reseller. "I can confirm with sincere regret that Olaf is leaving Insight," said Stuart …

[insideman]

Two words

Blackberry Playbook.

[Fresno Bob]

Who next?

Olafs decision to resign follows that of Paul Bolt (VP Marketing), Jamie Burke (SD) as well as a number of other senior sales heads this year - clearly the direction/culture of the company isn't right. All this change can't be good for staff morale, or vendors looking for consistency.

[Marclonus]

Well what do you know...

This outcome is pretty typical for Insight. Olaf was the last of the Software Spectrum era (company acquired by Insight in 2006) who actually knew what business at the Enterprise level looked like (as opposed to a box-shifting-to-small-naive-companies-at-60%-margin attitude), with significant wins in the last 12 months. However, Insight being very much a culture where you are evaluated by your team-mates and not your Managers, and mostly in a call center kind of way with 60 to 80 outbound calls a day regardless of your account size, this creates some rather intense internal politics where everyone has an agenda to please the All Mighty Fenton, resulting in quite a few of the senior positions being occupied by puppets rather than innovators and risk takers. I regularly ask myself the following question about any of the senior positions: "Stupid as you are, how did you get to that position in such a short time, and if you are smart, how long will you last before you get shot?"

[insideman]

@Marclonus

Recently sacked by Insight too?