Geoff Ley
Managing Director and Founder
Coming from a family farming background in North Devon, Geoff spent his early career developing stock control systems for corporations across Europe before identifying an opening in the growing small business software industry for straightforward programs to take care of farm records and thus SUM-IT was born in the early 1980s.
With a fully hands-on approach and a clear vision of how software can be designed to ensure the steps in any process are kept to a minimum, Geoff enjoys growing SUM-IT and its team into the successful company it is today.
Ben John
Sales & Marketing Director
Ben grew up on farms across southern England and after an early brush with fish farming followed by several years of farming overseas he returned to the UK, keen to grow his career within the agricultural industry. He joined SUM-IT in 1987 as it was beginning to make its mark across the country.
Ben manages all the sales and marketing activities at SUM-IT and you’ll probably bump into him on the SUM-IT stand at one of the many events and shows we attend each year.
Gordon Fowler
Software Support, Training & Testing
Gordon was born and bred a farmer’s son, growing up in North Buckinghamshire, and on finishing agricultural college in 1989 he then joined SUM-IT. Since then he has become the mainstay in SUM-IT’s Software Support and Training services in the Thame office, with an in-depth understanding of farm accounting and a deep knowledge of how to get the most out of the Total software.
His other role is ensuring that each new quarterly release of Total is put through a comprehensive testing régime prior to it being let loose on the thousands of SUM-IT Users and he has thoroughly trained the testing team in rooting out the wily bugs that can sometimes crop up.
Alex Herbert
Development Manager
Alex was born a townie but during his teenage years spent most of his holidays working on a farm near his grandparents. He went on to study Agriculture at Nottingham University and then enhanced his IT skills with an MSc in Information Management at Lancaster University. Alex joined SUM-IT in 1996 as part of the Software Support team and after 3 years learning all about the client base and existing product range he started developing the current range of Total software.
Alex took charge of the Development team in 2001 which is now based near Durham. His keen eye for detail and logical planning can be seen throughout our product range.
Andrew MacLennan
Software Support
Andrew is often the first person you speak to when calling SUM-IT for Support. Having held the Main Support post for many years now, Andrew has a broad knowledge of the Total software and his calm, unflappable nature lends itself well to sorting out those queries that often seem far trickier to the User than they really are.
Chris Swankie
Hardware & Networks
With a background in IT support and full Microsoft Networks certification to his name, Chris joined SUM-IT with a lot of useful skills and now runs all the hardware preparation and network installations as well as becoming a good authority on the Total software as part of the Support team.
Belinda Sandon
Office Administrator
Belinda’s natural flair for organisation, together with her friendly character, ensures our office bookwork is always up to date and her efficiency leaves her time to also provide in-depth support to Users on our Payroll and Auto Enrolment software too.
Sean Dobson
Software Support
A cheerful voice on the Support hotline, Sean’s laid back temperament is well-suited to growing User confidence when explaining solutions to their queries. Reading between the lines of their initial explanation is fundamental to understanding the cause behind their problem and Sean quickly identifies where their real issue lies and resolves it, usually painlessly.
Robert Padginton
Admin Support
Robert is everyone’s assistant in our office as he enables each of us to keep focused on tasks at hand by taking care of all the background jobs. Whether it’s dispatching new hardware, cutting new program CDs, keeping on top of GDPR compliance and much more – he’s certainly a man with many hats and always a big smile.
Michael Champion
Support Programmer
As well as being a dab hand on the Support phone lines, Michael is our resident data wizard. From archiving large historical datasets to generating specific reports and fixing any User Data errors, Michael’s thoroughness ensures data quality is always paramount.
Caitlyn Lambert
Sales, Marketing & Support
From a farming background in Yorkshire and gaining a First in Agri-Business Management from Newcastle University, Caitlyn has rapidly proved her abilities in both the Support and Marketing teams, gathering a sound understanding of the software to assist all users whilst importantly providing a youthful eye to our promotions online, managing the website and our social media presence.
Ian Sandon
Senior Software Developer
Joining us in 2020, Ian is taking the lead in ensuring SUM-IT’s software embraces the very latest technologies. In charge of the development of our next generation of management software, he is putting his seasoned programming skills to good effect. At the core of all SUM-IT programs is their practical simplicity and Ian’s acute ability to design a system incorporating user-friendly screens around state-of-the-art architecture carries on the legacy that has been the cornerstone of our integrated Total software since 2001.
Alex Jefferies
Support
The newest addition to our team, Alex joined us in 2022. He works with the development team to bug test our new software and provide a smooth transition for users from Total to TOTAL2. He is an engineering graduate who is enjoying learning the ins and out of the ever changing farming industry.