As we reported back in Sept 11, long-standing Intellect Director General John Higgins is moving to head up DigitalEurope in Brussels (See Higgins to work his magic in Europe)
Today it was announced that Julian David is to take over Higgins role from early March 12. David is already a Director of Intellect where he has taken a central role in their work with HM Government – particularly around Cloud – and heads their Public Sector Council
Before that David was a 28 year IBM veteran – his latest role before he departed in 2009 was as VP Public Sector in UK and Ireland.
David takes the helm at an ‘interesting’ time for the tech sector in the UK. On the one hand it is portrayed as being the sector with great potential for pulling the UK out of its current economic problems. On the other, enterprise IT spend faces great downward pressures and consumer tech is not immune (unless you are Apple) from ever thinner wallets. David’s public sector background could be of reducing importance as HM Govt looks to ways of reducing its spend with Intellect's largest members. Conversely, David made much play in his press statement today of the importance of SMEs to Intellect – pretty much the same message as is coming from HM Government.
We wish David all the best – he’s certainly going to need it.