CompuCom Canada leader now in charge of PCM Canada

It did not take Phil Soper long to find his next challenge. He was named today as the first ever President of PCM Canada.

Last year PCM acquired CDN Top 100 solution provider Acrodex of Edmonton and then picked up TigerDirect. The company also has a call centre operation in Montreal but Soper told CDN that headquarters for PCM Canada will be in Toronto.

Karim Amarshi and Yasmin Jivraj of Acrodex will be transitioning into a governance role with the Acrodex Board of Directors. Soper added that both executives will be on hand to help him get started. 

“I am excited to join PCM Canada and get the fire hose treatment, but also sad too to leave a great organization in CompuCom after eight and half years there,” he said.

Soper will be tasked to run the Acrodex business and the TigerDirect business in Canada. All of the TigerDirect stores have shut down but going forward the TigerDirect business will focus on small to mid-size business.

As for CompuCom Canada leadership a spokesperson at the company said no plans are in place currently to replace Soper. The company also thanked Soper for his eight plus years and wished him the best in his new opportunity.

As reported on CDN, Soper was the vice president and general manager of CompuCom Canada, a CDN Top 5 Solution Provider that was focused on building data centre, communications and networking solutions. Acrodex placed No. 9 on last year’s CDN Top 100 list with revenues between $200 to $225 million.

Before joining CompuCom Canada, Soper served as national sales manager at Apple Canada Inc., where he created a multi-sales channel approach sold into key markets such as education, business, channel and consumer.

The Western University graduate was also vice president, complementary channels for Telus Business Solutions. Soper got his start in the channel at Compaq Canada Inc. where he spent 14 years in sales and sales management positions.

Soper’s resignation comes almost a year after SoftwareOne and CompuCom agreed to a deal that will see the Berlin, WI.-based direct market reseller acquire the software licensing business of CompuCom.

Acrodex Leadership

Yasmin Jivraj was the president and co-owner of Acrodex. She graduated from the University of Alberta with a computing science degree before founding Acrodex.

Yasmin Jivraj
Yasmin Jivraj

Acrodex was established in 1984 under a different name Multitech Electronics Inc. by Karim Amarshi, Nazir Javer, and Barkat Chatur.

Multitech provided electronic components to computer hardware and then software. In 1992, it diversified into services through a merger agreement with Technology Integration, which had a separate division called CompCanada Technologies. CompCanada was folded into Multitech. By the turn of the century the company expanded into application development by acquiring Atlas Systems Group, becoming CompCanada Atlas.

 

Karim Amarshi
Karim Amarshi

Jivraj formed Atlas Systems Group also in 1984. Atlas eventually merged with CompCanada in 2000 and a year later was renamed Acrodex.

Besides running Acrodex, Jivraj is also the co-founder of CIPS (Canadian Information Processing Society) Women in Technology – Leap Towards the Future program.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Paolo Del Nibletto
Paolo Del Nibletto
Former editor of Computer Dealer News, covering Canada's IT channel community.

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