Emma Westland

Emma Westland became head of Zoom’s UK and Ireland channel in spring 2026, a promotion reported by CRN UK on 1 May. She had joined the company in 2024 as UK and Ireland strategic partners lead, after two decades in leadership roles at companies including RingCentral and Poly, now part of HP. Her promotion followed Tony McNish’s move in March from UK and Ireland channel leader to head of channel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

A UK data center to sell

The timing gives her something new to take to partners. In November 2025 Zoom announced a UK data center to meet data residency requirements and win more work in the public sector, healthcare and financial services. It went live in spring 2026. Westland wrote on LinkedIn that the facility opens up “significant opportunities for partners serving UK businesses and public sector organisations”, as CRN UK reported.

Zoom’s own launch post, published on 8 June, says more than 20 Zoom services now run on UK infrastructure, including Zoom Phone with UK numbers, at no extra cost to new paid customers. The NHS, government and education are the lead audience. The post names four partners at launch: Maintel, Wavenet, PEX TD Synnex and Nuvias.

A new partner program

Westland also inherits Zoom Up, the partner program Zoom overhauled in November 2025. The changes split resale and agency partners into separate tracks, replaced a checklist with a points-based framework and set a fixed annual assessment cycle, with a new partner dashboard due in February 2026.

Zoom’s enterprise revenue, the business that partners selling phone, contact center and regulated-sector deals feed, rose 6.5% to $2.93bn (£2.2bn) in the year to January 2026, according to its annual results.

Why it matters to the channel

For UK unified communications resellers, a UK-hosted Zoom removes a data residency objection in NHS, council and government deals. Westland’s job is to turn that into partner-led wins in a market where partners can choose from several rival platforms.

The UK data center gives Westland a concrete reason for partners to put Zoom in front of public sector buyers, and she now leads the channel that will take it there.