Chris Clarke

Chris Clarke has been director of sales for the UK and Ireland at Pax8, the US cloud marketplace, since February 2026. He came to the job from the partner side. He was managing director of Create IT, a managed service provider in Newbury, Berkshire, when Equity Networks bought it in September 2024 as its seventh acquisition, and he then became head of sales at Equity. Pax8 says he has more than 15 years in the IT channel.

A partner’s view of the marketplace

Pax8 said Clarke would lead regional sales strategy for managed service providers and for what it calls ‘managed intelligence providers’, its term for MSPs that build services around AI. Pax8 says it has more than 47,000 MSP partners worldwide.

His stated aims were practical ones. “My priorities are to listen to partners, remove friction and help them move faster with the Pax8 Marketplace,” he said when his appointment was announced.

A fast-growing UK business

Pax8’s UK subsidiary grew turnover 58% to £131m in calendar 2024 and gross profit 71% to £19.5m, as reported by IT Channel Oxygen from its filed accounts, so gross profit grew faster than sales. It employed an average of 204 staff.

Why it matters to the channel

Pax8 is now a large route to cloud licensing for UK MSPs, and its pitch leans on AI services as much as on licenses. A sales leader who has run an MSP and sold it to a consolidator knows the margins partners work on and what buyers look for in recurring revenue. That experience is useful as Pax8 asks partners to buy into its AI program.

Clarke has run an MSP, sold one and led sales for a consolidator. He now leads sales to UK and Irish MSPs for a marketplace whose UK turnover grew 58% to £131m in 2024.