Running an MSP Across Two Generations

Mark Pace started Sterling IT in 1995. Thirty-one years on, his son Nathan runs the business day to day as General Manager (a role he never planned on) having come to IT from real estate. In this conversation, recorded live at Catalyst, they talk openly about what generational handover actually looks like inside a working MSP: the fear of letting go when your clients have been with you for 25 years, the arguments over changing a logo or moving an office, and why the friction between old-school experience and new-generation thinking is the thing that makes it work rather than the thing that breaks it. There's also some practical wisdom on client retention, treating the one-man band like your biggest account, and why partnership beats price every time.