Adrian Sunderland

Adrian Sunderland has been chief executive of Jola, a wholesale mobile data and IoT connectivity provider, since 1 August 2023. He took over from Andrew Dickinson after serving as chief technology officer. Sunderland co-founded Jola in 2014. Before that he founded Griffin Internet in 1992, which Jola describes as one of the UK’s first ISPs and a pioneer of selling only through partners. Griffin was sold in 2012.

Jola has changed hands since it started. BGF bought 25% of the company from its shareholders in 2021 for £10.75m, and in July 2022 the whole business was sold to Wireless Logic, the IoT connectivity group, according to Jola.

Mobile data as the copper replacement

Jola says it now supports more than 1,600 partners, from MSPs to ISPs and resellers, who resell its SIMs, routers and fixed IP mobile data. In the past year it launched RoamNet 901, multi-network SIMs that roam across all four UK networks and 65 networks in 29 European countries, and RoamNet Blue Pay-per-Zone, which charges roaming data at the rate of the zone where it is used. It also added battery-backed 4G routers for lifts and other lines that must keep working in a power cut, aimed at customers moving off copper before the PSTN switch-off. In May Sunderland said opportunities like the switch-off “are driving demand for resilient connectivity”.

Channel-only inside a global group

Sunderland describes the model plainly. “We are a channel-only, independently run company within a global market-leading IoT specialist,” he said in November 2025, adding that Jola builds its products on networks already inside the group. That gives partners access to Wireless Logic’s network deals.

Jola reports a partner Net Promoter Score of 60 from its own annual survey, says partners in its sales program grow 41% faster than those outside it, and says 89% of new partners win a major opportunity within 90 days. That program won the Partner Accelerator award at the Comms Business Awards in July 2026, and Jola was named Network & Connectivity Vendor of the Year at the Technology Reseller Awards in June.

Why it matters to the channel

As copper lines close, IT support firms and MSPs are being asked to keep lifts, payment terminals, digital signage and CCTV connected. Jola lets them sell mobile connectivity as a managed service with their own margin, without negotiating with the mobile networks themselves.

Sunderland has done this before: Griffin was a channel-only ISP that lasted two decades before it was sold. At Jola he has built a base of more than 1,600 partners and a product range designed for the switch-off.