Emily Masterton

Emily Masterton has been global head of channel at 8x8, the Nasdaq-listed contact center and unified communications vendor, since May 2026. She was promoted from head of channel for EMEA, a job she had held since July 2024, according to Telecompaper. As reported by Intelligent Tech Channels, she joined 8x8 about six and a half years ago as a strategic alliance lead, after channel roles at Oak Telecom, Unify and Atos. In March 8x8 announced that she had been named to CRN’s Channel Leaders EMEA list. 8x8 reported revenue of $735.8m (£550m) for the year to 31 March 2026 and record quarterly revenue of $190.2m, up 5%, in the quarter to June.

Paying partners to keep customers

Her first big move in the global role came on 6 August, when 8x8 launched a new program for its direct resellers. It has four tiers – Authorized, Silver, Gold and Platinum – and pays rebates for retaining and expanding existing customers as well as for new business. Resellers get monthly performance dashboards, and 8x8 says the program comes with dedicated channel account managers, co-marketing support and outcome-based enablement. An 8x8 blog post on the launch adds revenue thresholds for each tier, no caps on partner upside and a dedicated sales development resource for Silver partners and above.

Masterton presented it as a break with how vendors usually pay the channel. Most partner programs “reward activity”, she said, while this one “rewards outcomes”. Her case was that “deep customer relationships drive true value, alongside winning new business.”

8x8 tested the program with selected partners before launch. ChannelLife named Opus Technology as the UK pilot partner. Michael O’Donnell, its chief commercial officer, said the program was “looking at the big picture and going beyond just bringing in more business.”

One sales team, not two

Masterton describes 8x8 as channel-first, and her answer to channel conflict is structural. “We don’t run a separate sales team to support channel versus direct. It’s one team,” she told SalesTechStar in June. She also said vendors could get sharper at showing what partners are worth: “It’s easy to count partner-sourced deals. It’s harder, and more valuable, to show partner-influenced pipeline, the relative cost of sale across both routes, and what happens to those customers after the deal closes.”

UK partners featured strongly in 8x8’s 2026 partner awards, which the company says were judged on bookings, growth and new customers in the year to March. EMEA winners included Softcat, named agent partner of the year, Wavenet, which took both the resell and contact center awards, and Croft.

Why it matters to the channel

8x8’s pitch is that most vendor incentives pay for the sale and ignore the years of service that follow it. Recurring rebates for keeping customers change that for resellers whose income depends on renewals. It also gives other communications vendors selling through UK resellers a model to match.

Masterton rewrote the terms for 8x8’s resellers within three months of taking the global job, putting retention and expansion alongside new sales in how the vendor pays its channel.