Meet the team
We are Ascentae



Alex Ciobanu
Previously a Roaming Technician for 6 Ark Primary Schools in London followed by an IT Support Engineer in a Sixth Form College role, Alex has now joined Ascentae as a Technical Support Engineer with the scope of supporting customers and help integrate new technologies as well as providing IT assistance.
Alex is Comptia A+ and Network+ certified IT support specialist, Python associate, and has a background in mechanics. When not working, Alex enjoys spending time with his family, as well as reading articles about space exploration and the latest IT developments.


Alex Cunnington
Alex joined the Ascentae team as an account manager. He is responsible for developing relationships with our range of dealers alongside expanding our sale opportunities with the objective of growing our client base and the business as a whole. Alex has recently completed his studies at the University of Reading, achieving a degree in Accounting and Management and is wholly looking forward to applying this as he ventures into the sales industry. In his spare time, he is an avid sports fan and looks to participate in and watch as much sport as possible. Some of his favourites being Hockey, Golf, Football, Cricket, and NFL.


Alexandra Jenkinson
Alexandra graduated from Sheffield Hallam University in summer 2020 with a degree in International Business with Spanish. Alexandra has a previous background in marketing and customer service and is looking forward to supporting customers and their end users. Alexandra is responsible for helping build and maintain profitable business relationships with our reseller channels and is eager to learn from the highly experienced sales team at Ascentae.
When Alexandra is not working, she likes to go to the gym, walk the dogs and socialise with friends and family.


Andrew George
With 15 years’ experience in various financial roles within technology distribution, as finance and logistics manager Andrew ensures the operational efficiency and establishes the financial strategy of the business. He believes Ascentae is at a very exciting time in its development. The company is achieving traction in its growth, bringing to market disruptive and innovative technologies in a business that brings real value to its customers. Ascentae has a formidable senior management team coupled with a strong financial backing. Andrew’s role is to support the business in applying its philosophy and values, and to enhance systems and processes that truly support the customer, vendor and employee relationships. This is a company that has a great opportunity to grow and develop and his ambition is to support the progression of the company with his commercial and financial experience.


Charlotte Hall
Charlotte joined the team as an Account Manager. She is responsible for communicating with our dealers and tailoring solutions to meet their required needs, alongside qualifying new sales opportunities to create growth for the business.
Having completed degrees in Business Management and a recent master’s in Marketing from the University of Bath, Charlotte is able to draw on this background and is keen to learn more about the sales industry from Ascentae’s highly experienced team.
In her spare time, Charlotte enjoys long-distance running and regularly takes part in races and events. She also enjoys socialising with friends and family and travelling whenever possible.


Chris Jennings
As an Internal Sales Executive, Chris is responsible for developing and maintaining successful relationships with Ascentae’s partners, as well as fashioning ideal solutions for their use cases and creating new opportunities to stimulate business growth.
Chris graduated from the University of Lincoln with a degree in History but now sets his sights on his career future while keeping a keen interest in the past. This is his first sales role – his background being in retail, warehouse and hospitality roles. As such, he’s eager to build industry skills from the skilled team at Ascentae while drawing from his existing work experience and enthusiasm for the tech space.
In his free time, Chris takes as keen an interest in technology and gaming as he does in hikes, cycling, and a beginner’s attempt at bodybuilding and racquet sports.


George Hough
As part of Ascentae’s business development team, George is responsible for generating interest in our product range as well as gaining an insight into end user’s requirements. This is his first sales role and, as such, he is keen to develop his industry knowledge alongside the experienced team at Ascentae. George graduated from the University of Exeter in 2021 with a degree in English. Indeed, he still loves reading in his free time as well as playing water polo, golf and football.


Harriet Balshaw
Harriet is Ascentae’s Major Accounts Sales Manager, and is responsible for growing and supporting some of Ascentae’s core customers with her team. Having worked in specialist distribution for over 6 years, she brings a wealth of knowledge from the Unified Communications industry to the team, as well as core business knowledge from a breadth of previous roles. Harriet’s passion and enthusiasm to enable the channel to understand the opportunity in modern workplace technology, and to empower end-users to reap the benefits from the fast-changing office landscape, serves as a fantastic addition to the Ascentae team.
Outside of work, Harriet likes to spend her time playing netball, walking her dog Milo, and staying active in the gym. A few cheeky G&T’s or a nice pint of IPA with friends and family at the weekend also never goes a miss!


Jack Belton


Jon Knight
Jon is responsible for overseeing all commercial elements within Ascentae, including setting the overall business strategy and defining the route to market. Jon co-founded Ascentae following two decades of experience working on ‘both sides’ of the industry and his in depth knowledge of the sector has helped to shape Ascentae’s vision for the future. Working in distribution for six years and leading an AV reseller for 13 years has given Jon a great understanding of the pressures and challenges facing the channel. Jon’s insight has brought huge opportunity and enabled him to identify significant gaps in the UK distribution market. Ascentae’s role is to bridge those gaps and bring new and disruptive technology to end users together with a dedicated network of resellers. As passionate about products as he is his people. Jon is highly committed to ensuring customers have a fantastic experience through new technology and is equally dedicated to maintaining resellers’ margins to help drive profitability and growth. Away from Ascentae, Jon is an enthusiastic father of two children, who keep him very busy when he’s not working. On the rare occasions he has any spare time, Jon will be found playing golf or tennis or enjoying a good wine with friends.


Lee Russell
Lee joined Ascentae as a Technical Support Engineer at the start of 2023. Lee’s experience varies from working in IT Support, Data Centers, ‘on the tools’ travelling up and down the UK as an AV Installation Engineer and, most recently, an AV Technician in the education sector in Leeds.
In his spare time, Lee enjoys spending time with the family, long country walks, trips to the Yorkshire coast, coding and keeping up to date with the developments of new technology that’s released.


Luke Doneghan
Luke is responsible for managing all of Ascentae’s vendor relationships, working with the wider Ascentae team ensure that Acscentae’s channel partners receive the best possible experience of selling and deploying Ascentae’s product portfolio, and that our vendors connect with the right partners and end customers.
Luke has (almost) 20 years’ experience in the IT channel in the UK and Europe, having worked in various sales and management roles in vendors, distributors and resellers. An advocate for ensure partners understand how the right technology can be best utilised to improve their customers experience, Luke joined Ascentae on the strength of the value that our vendor partners can deliver in answering some of the key challenges in the modern workplace today.


Michael Wilcox
Michael is responsible for overseeing all of the marketing activities within Ascentae. This includes developing the marketing strategy and creating, deploying and measuring marketing campaigns to support our reseller community. Michael successfully graduated from the University of Winchester with an honours degree in business and marketing. He is passionate about customers and excited to be in a role where he can be instrumental in helping organisations to transform the way they collaborate. He’s looking forward to spending lots of time with resellers and end users to better understand how we can help communicate the benefits of some of the exciting products we have in our portfolio now. When Michael’s not working, he likes to play football and golf and he enjoys an active social life with friends and family.


Nick Palmer
Responsible for all aspects of Ascentae services, Nick manages a team of engineers and project managers to ensure all services are professionally delivered; on time and on budget. From GoBright commissioning to Mago Room deployments and pre- and post-sales technical support, Nick and his team will work with our vendors and customers to design and deliver Ascentae solutions.
Having worked in technology distribution for over 25 years, Nick’s experience includes roles in sales, product management, marketing, technical support and services. Nick’s comprehensive understanding of products and channel means he is ideally placed to understand customer needs and translate them into meaningful business propositions. Whether you need pre- or post-sales technical advice, installation support, project management or engineer services, Nick will be happy to assist.
With a long track record of success, including a 2 year stint as Product Manager at Ascentae, Nick is delighted to head up our technical team.
Married for 25 years with a young family, Nick enjoys cooking, rugby, football, cricket and is an enthusiastic, if poor, golfer.


Olivia Lloyd
Olivia (Liv) graduated from Hallam in 2020 after studying business and marketing. Passionate about customer experience, Liv is looking forward to interacting with customers and helping them with any questions or concerns they may have during the sales process. In her free time, Liv enjoys hanging out with her kitten (who occasionally joins the odd teams call) and socialising with family and friends!


Robert Taylor
Robert brings a wealth of sales and relationship management experience from his previous roles in the telecommunications and IT industries. As Ascentae’s Business Development Consultant, Robert’s role is to develop the skills of our sales team and support our product strategy in context of both current and emerging market trends.


Suki Ng
Suki works as an Accounts Assistant for back office of Ascentae, performing the accounting duties such as assisting in managing accounts, reporting, providing administrative and logistical support.
As a mother of two teens, Suki spends her spare time walking or cycling around in the countryside, listening to the sound of falling leaves. Suki also enjoys watching documentary films and attempting yoga and spiritual meditation.


Tom Mina-Coul
Tom is responsible for project delivery and streamlining of Ascentae projects. With specific current focus on GoBright deployments, he is working to deliver streamlined and repeatable projects for our clients.
He is engaged in the full project scope, liaising with both resellers and end users, and ensuring successful delivery. With a background in sales and a wide knowledge of project management methodologies and best practices, he is honing project delivery and maximising efficiency.