Stuck in the Lift with… Chris Pooley, APAC Sales Director

Since he started in 2009 Chris has seen 140 new colleagues join the company and has garnered 10,231 new customers. The UK company has moved site 3 times as it’s grown and we have branched out with 3 other offices worldwide. Not content with this amount of movement, Chris and his wife Ali are now shuttling all the way to NZ to continue Techbuyer’s global operation.

Where did you grow up? Harrogate, UK. I’ve lived here all my life so moving to Auckland is going to be daunting but equally, if not more, exciting!

What's your first memory? Complete darkness and then a blinding light seeing people dressed in blue.

What did you want to be when growing up? A football manager, but I couldn’t have competed with Gareth Southgate as the best football manager from Harrogate!

How long have you been at Techbuyer? 276,123,102 seconds and counting.

What are your primary roles at Techbuyer? Business development, building relationships and providing an out-of-this-world service – this is what I honestly strive to do every single day.

Favourite memory at Techbuyer? It has to be winning our largest ever customer order – it still stands as the record to date. I’ve loved all the opportunities to travel and have visited Vegas, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Budapest and Riga. More recently I loved planning to go to New Zealand and all the organising involved in that. Honestly though, the people I work with are awesome so I enjoy coming into work every day.

Where did you work previously and how did you get a job at Techbuyer? Lloyds TSB – a large UK bank, it wasn’t that exciting. I had known Marcus (one of our senior sales guys) since I was 3 years old and he told me about Techbuyer. He got me an opportunity for an interview in a sales role and then I was the fifth member of staff to join! Two weeks later I broke my leg playing football which was always a good way to start a new job.

What were your first impressions of Techbuyer?! Time to buy a new coat – I’m not going to lie it was freezing in the building but I didn’t really care to be honest. The 5 of us used to have penalty shootouts outside the warehouse into our own mini goal which was cool! We now have over 120 employees worldwide and a warehouse 10x the size – crazy!

What is your favourite thing to do out of work? A mix between going to the gym, cinema and playing football, squash and most other sports – and eating. I like to be doing things, getting out and about, like to the kitchen. I really do eat a LOT.

Tell us something we don't know about you... People never believe me but I can sing, like a very manly angel: I was the lead in my year 6 muscial! My great-great-great grandad survived the Titanic disaster- the actual one, not the terrible film…and finally, if you can take more surprises, I’m a qualified British powerlifting coach (hence the food intake). I can also play the bugle which everyone else finds hilarious for some unknown reason…