Maria Armstrong departs Pax8

Maria Armstrong's role as manager of Pax8's Academy in APAC has been made redundant.

Armstrong first joined Pax8 in 2022 as Community Engagement Manager, working with the Pax8 Academy Team, before taking over as manager of the Academy in July 2024.

She said that her role has been made redundant due to a restructuring of the delivery in the region by Pax8.

"There was a few of us whose roles were made redundant; the team here was delivering one-on-one coaching, peer groups and instructor-led training and they're no longer doing the coaching in the region [and] are restructuring the training,” she said.

Lindsay Zwart, Pax8's EVP and GM of APAC, recently told techpartner.news that Pax8 had decided to provide its coaching through the company's US delivery team.

Zwart said 15 partners had used one-on-one coaching sessions since the Academy first came to the ANZ region.

“We also felt that we were spending a lot of time on just a tiny handful of partners, as opposed to creating a program where we could touch the thousands of partners that we have in our ecosystem,” she explained.

Partners get the best scale and growth when they “lean into” more of the company's course offerings as opposed to the coaching, Zwart said.

Armstrong praised Pax8 Academy’s work, saying it "impacted thousands of individuals and hundreds of partners" in seven countries worldwide.

"In ANZ, the participation [in Academy] was particularly high, but across the seven countries, [having] coaching, training and one on one conversations with partners and then hearing from them a month, six months, even a year later, and they'd say 'that one conversation just changed the entire trajectory of my business; I pivoted what I was doing, I'm now profitable, I've added new product lines, I've added new services, I'm actually selling more than I've ever sold before'," she told techpartner.news.

"I woke up every day to make a difference in the industry, and for me, that was my proudest, happiest time."

Armstrong, who is vice chair of the Global Technology Industry Association's ANZ executive council, said her next role would "definitely still be within the industry".

"I had a break back when I had my children and worked outside of the industry, and then when my youngest daughter went back to school, I fell back in the tech industry accidentally," she explained.

"I wasn't looking for anything, but I ended up working at an MSP, and walking in the door of that MSP, I thought 'I feel like I'm home'. That was 11 years ago now. I've done my time out of the tech industry, and I know that it doesn't matter what happens, this is where I'm staying.

"It's where I belong, it's my home, and I'm incredibly grateful for the support I've had from colleagues and friends and peers in the industry, and I'll still be around supporting the industry."