? Date you joined the company: November 2004

? Previous occupation: trading director, Londis RDC

? Responsible for: beers, wines & spirits, telephony, lottery, tobacco, soft drinks, snacks, confectionery & biscuits

? How is your leisure time spent: angling, ornithology, wildlife preservation

? Offer one piece of advice to help suppliers succeed with you: trust us and share information

? The best promotion currently running with our customers is: '35 South' Chilean Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot - 2 for £7.00

? My vote for the best current/recent TV/press advertising is: Danone Activa TV campaign

? My vote for the best new product launch this year goes to: Magners Cider ? Gripe of the month (what upsets you most about supplier policies): Complexity! The key to success in business relationships is developing a joint business plan. Unfortunately some branded manufacturers (who should know better) fail to understand the basic business premise of sharing information. They spend too much time telling the buyer about their business and fail to ask the right questions about our business and, as a consequence, do not gain a sufficient understanding of MBL.

What we then see is a tendency for these manufacturers to over-engineer their trading terms. This results in too much time spent on assessing and attempting to understand the potential earnings and insufficient time spent on driving the business forward.

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