Paul Hooper

Fortec United Kingdom has five product divisions; display components/assemblies, monitors, embedded PCs, power supplies and wound components. My role is to execute a strategy which delivers sustainable growth in all five product divisions across targeted market sectors. I am fortunate to work with a dynamic team of modern thinking professionals, who are totally aligned with our vision, objectives and values. They are fun to work with and never shy in voicing their ideas.

I was originally employed as a Product Manager to develop the custom display business due to my expertise and experience in this market sector. At this time 80% of Anders revenue was generated through the Vikay franchise and one of my objectives was to mitigate this risk through the introduction and development of alternative manufacturing partners. After several many successful years I was promoted to Display Sales Manager and this was my first experience of managing a team. The hardest challenge was taking Anders from a product distribution mentality to a consultative sales approach, with the ability to support major global projects which were typically handled directly by Far Eastern LCD factories. For many this was a difficult change but ultimately successful for us all. As the company grew I was promoted to Display Group Manager and I was given full responsibility for all aspects of the company's displays business. This included managing the sales team, managing major global accounts, marketing, product management and developing manufacturing partners. Managing a sales team and my own global accounts was difficult and I am still not convinced it is the most productive way to manage a business. During this time I also became a member of the Anders Management Team. I personally learnt a lot from my General Manager and friend, Paul Mullen, who is sadly no longer with us. As the display market migrated from monochrome technology to a colour TFT display with integrated capacitive touchscreen, the customers demanded a higher level of technical expertise from both our sales and engineering teams. Prioritising the sales team's requirements with the engineering team's resource was a challenge and frequently neither team was happy. After 20 great years at Anders I had reached my glass ceiling and it was time to move on.

Initially I was responsible for the technical support of all major European projects. I provided the technical interface between our R & D teams in Singapore and our European customers, which due to language and cultural differences was a real challenge. Is a "yes" from Singaporean engineer really confirmation of a customer's technical requirement or an acknowledgment of the request? The majority of our projects and Vikay's strength was the development and supply of custom display assemblies. In particular for industrial applications which require optical excellence and long term reliability. The management of these complex and challenging projects helped further develop my project management skills and enhanced my technical competence. As the role development I became more involved in the commercial aspects of these projects and I was given responsibility to manage the UK distribution sales channel. This included quotations, proposals, product marketing, forecasting, joint customer visits with the distributors, quality, shipments and payments. I was sales mentored by two widely different but great managers at Vikay, Colin Saunders and Paul Lewis. Both had different approaches to sales and I feel that I have taken the best bits from each. After four very enjoyable years I was approached by Anders Electronics to develop their custom display business

This was my first employment as a graduate engineer. My responsibilities included technical support for 4 & 8 bit micro-controllers. However, more importantly it was my first introduction to Liquid Crystal Display technology (LCD). At that time Hawke Components had two LCD franchises, Epson and Vikay. I am proud to say that I was the first Epson distributor to build a demo and power up samples of their new leading edge STN LCD graphics displays. Supporting Vikay related projects, I gained my first experience of the custom display market and started to develop the problem solving skills required to be successful in this industry. I was approached by Vikay during their Annual European Distributor Conference to join their dynamic European sales team, which without hesitation I accepted.

My university course was a four year sandwich course, with the third year an industrial placement year. My industrial placement year was with Hewlett Packard (HP) UK Components Division, which specialised in Opto electronics, RF and Microwave components. My responsibilities included providing technical sales support to UK customers and the Uk sales team, qualifying all new UK enquiries and prospecting for new business. This was my first experience of a technical sales environment and the electronic display market. The biggest challenge was dealing with the large number of enquiries and technical issues, to the high level and global professionalism demanded by HP. Fortunately HP are a great people focussed company and provide all employees with an excellent training programme and support structure. It was during my placement year at HP that I development my time management skills, in particular how to prioritise sales and technical support to multiple customers and projects, which still serves me well now. I also learnt an important lesson, that for any technical question there is always an answer. If you don't know the answer then it's just about finding the right person that does. I left Hewlett Packard to return to University knowing that I now wanted a future career in technical sales.

This was my year off between college and university. I was responsible for repairing and testing tape streaming devices. Anyone under the age of 40 will probably have no idea what they are.... This was my first experience of working in technology and the electronics industry. During this time I realised that being a technician for the rest of my career was not for me. The work required a high level of concentration and a fine touch handling electronic components. However, I wanted to develop products not repair them and to do this I needed to go to University.

This was my Saturday and holiday job. I cut the grass, loaded/unloaded builders vans and swept up the yard. I rapidly learnt how to deal with straight talking, no-nonsense mechanics and builders, which was a good life lesson.