Alex Morel

I started as a TEFL teacher at St Brelade’s College which is where I learnt to teach adults. I then moved to a small charity and got involved in a project, funded by the BBC, to help marginalised communities access the internet to improve their language, literacy, and numeracy skills - which I absolutely loved.

I first worked for an IT consultancy company helping their clients use their cloud products (when cloud was a very new concept). In 2009 I set up ALX Training. This combined both aspects of IT training which I enjoyed – helping people get Back to Work through basic IT training programmes and working with organisations to improve their productivity and efficiency.

A teaching qualification coupled with a love of technology. In my role as Managing Director I took the IoD Certificate in Company Direction which was very useful and I still draw on everything I learnt on the Leadership in Management course run by the Leadership Trust.

I really like it, I like being surrounded by bright, techy people who are working on new technologies. I have a very supportive and wonderful team around me, I used to say the best part of running your own company is you get to choose who you work with. Since selling to BDO & C5 the leadership team there have also been incredibly supportive and have enabled us to grow further and into new markets.

Sometimes we are not seen as part of the tech community as we only teach people to use software rather than produce or implement the software ourselves. However, there is little point having the perfect piece of software if no one is using it or at best, using it badly.

I always like to plan a big trip somewhere unusual. However, since Covid I have switched to walking all over the island, finding little lanes and spots I have not been to before. If you know me, you’ll know I have a lot of energy to burn off and it also gives me great thinking time.

Working with my colleagues to help our clients use their software better, which can often mean they get to enjoy their work more.

I love the little ‘Ahhhh’ moments in a class when someone realises that the job that once took all day can be done in a few clicks. We are very lucky in our roles because we get a lot of feedback, so we know instantly if we have done a good job and that is very rewarding.

We have also just finished phase II of a project with Standard Bank Advisory Limited where we are helping them to leverage Microsoft 365 to improve collaboration between their divisions. During lock-down, we had people logging in to Teams lessons from Beijing, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, London, New York, and Mauritius to name a few. It was a great way to meet people from different cultures and backgrounds when you can’t travel.