Male domination at leadership level could impede the comms industry's potential for growth, intensifying calls for greater gender diversity during a round table discussion (attendees pictured) last month on the current and future role and population of women in ICT.

Purdicom Sales Manager Steve Kent has been promoted to Sales & Marketing Director. He joined the company in 2015 and became Sales Manager in May 2017, a move that catalysed quarterly revenue growth from 4.2% up to 84% in Q3, delivering overall annual revenue growth of 40%.

Q1 this year is up 45% on the same period last year.

Tech Data now has a pan-European distribution agreement with Panduit, a provider of network infrastructure solutions, building on its existing agreement with Panduit covering the United States.

Carelink, the UK healthcare managed infrastructure and network services business of Piksel, has migrated its Managed Cloud/Infrastructure as a Service customers to the Health and Social Care Network (HSCN), the replacement network for N3.

Hosting and cloud service provider iomart Group has posted a positive pre-close trading statement for the year ending 31 March, ahead of the announcement of its full year results.

The company said it expects to deliver "another strong set of results" delivering "good growth in both revenue and profit".

plan.com has launched a new range of roaming Global Traveller bolt-ons to help business customers stay connected and in control of costs anywhere in the world.

Simoco Wireless Solutions has appointed Graeme Warne to a newly created Business Development Manager position, specifically overseeing its growing range of solutions for transport organisations.

He joins from a senior business development position at Dynniq, a provider of transport management systems.

Two Manchester-based tech companies have teamed up to give local businesses an 'Internet boost'.

Local ISP Telcom Networks is working with The Loop, Manchester's dedicated fibre network (part of Gamma), to deliver faster Internet speeds, more than three hundred times faster than standard broadband, initially to 15 prominent buildings in Manchester city centre, claims the firm.

Exertis has signed a distribution agreement with Ruckus Networks, the provider of network infrastructure solutions.

Exertis will provide resellers with Ruckus' complete range of wired and wireless access network and ICX switching products.

Responding to the Local Government Association's (LGA) call for house builders to adopt FTTP kite marks for new builds, Mark Collins, Director Strategy & Policy at CityFibre, stated: "Access to high quality Internet access is of enormous importance to UK residents, with around one in three admitting that it has become as important to them as electricity, gas and water, and a quarter going