Quick Facts
| Pairing | Howard Marks | Chris Evans | Public link found? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data storage industry | Analyst and technologist (DeepStorage, later VAST Data) | Chris M. Evans, analyst behind Architecting IT | Yes, shared podcast and event appearances |
| Wales and British media | Welsh author of Mr Nice (1945 to 2016) | English television and radio presenter | None found |
| Finance and film | American investor known for his memos | Hollywood actor | None found |
People who search for Howard Marks and Chris Evans often expect a single story, but these two names belong to several different public figures, and that is why the results can feel confusing. Depending on who is behind the search, the answer could involve the data storage industry, British television and radio, a famous Welsh author, or even Hollywood and Wall Street. This article sorts out each possible pairing, explains which one has a confirmed public connection, and points out where online claims go beyond the facts.
Most of the pages that appear in search results are film listings, interview pieces, or profiles of only one of the two men, and few of them explain why the names are linked at all. The sections below fill that gap using public profiles, podcast listings, and event pages, and they say clearly when no connection could be found.
Why Searches for Howard Marks and Chris Evans Return Mixed Results
Both names are extremely common, and each belongs to more than one person with a public profile. There is a Welsh former hashish smuggler turned author named Howard Marks, an American investor with the same name, and a technology analyst who goes by the same name in the storage industry. On the other side, Chris Evans can mean the English television and radio presenter born in 1966, the American actor best known for playing Captain America, or Chris M. Evans, a United Kingdom based storage consultant who writes under the name Architecting IT.
Search engines tend to blend these identities, so a query that combines the two names can pull up film reviews, radio biographies, and technology podcasts on the same page. Only one of the possible pairings has a documented professional link, and that pairing comes from the world of enterprise data storage rather than from entertainment.
The Confirmed Link: Two Voices in the Data Storage World
The storage analyst Howard Marks founded DeepStorage, an independent test lab and analyst firm, and according to his Crunchbase profile he ran it from 2009 until early 2019. His conference biography says he spent more than 30 years as a New York based consultant before that, and that he has written three books and hundreds of articles on networking and storage, including a column for NetworkComputing.com. In 2019 he joined VAST Data, and the news site Blocks and Files reported at the time that it was his first full-time job since 1987. His job title has varied between profiles, appearing as Chief Storyteller in one podcast introduction and as Technologist Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in others.
Chris M. Evans has worked in information technology for more than 27 years, according to his author page at Network Computing. He earned a degree in computational science and mathematics from the University of Leeds, began his career on mainframes, and later co-founded and floated a company that sold music and digital downloads. For most of the following two decades he worked as an independent consultant, and Solutions Review describes him as the owner and director of the consultancy Brookend Ltd, as well as the author of the Architecting IT blog and a host of the Storage Unpacked podcast.
The two men appear together in public records at least twice. Both were listed on the delegate panel for the Storage Field Day Exclusive at Pure Accelerate 2017, which Tech Field Day scheduled for 12 June of that year. Later, Evans and his co-host Martin Glassborow interviewed Marks about VAST Data in a sponsored Storage Unpacked episode titled “Introduction to VAST Data (Part I)”. For anyone asking whether Howard Marks and Chris Evans have a real professional connection, this storage industry link is the only one supported by documents that can be checked.
Howard Marks and Chris Evans in British Culture: What Is Confirmed and What Is Not
The better-known Howard Marks was born in 1945 in the Welsh mining village of Kenfig Hill and won a scholarship to Oxford. Descriptions of his studies differ, with one interview naming physics at Balliol College and another calling him a philosophy student. He built a career smuggling cannabis, and according to a Paris Review account by a writer who spent a week with him in 1995, he escaped conviction at the Old Bailey by arguing that he had been working for the British intelligence service MI6. He was later sentenced in the United States to 25 years on racketeering charges, served seven of them in Terre Haute, Indiana, and was released in 1995. His autobiography Mr Nice followed in 1996 and became an international bestseller, and a film adaptation directed by Bernard Rose reached British cinemas on 8 October 2010 with Rhys Ifans in the title role. Marks claimed that he never used violence and refused to deal in class A drugs, which is his own account rather than an independently proven fact.
Chris Evans the presenter was born on 1 April 1966 and rose to fame through Radio 1 Breakfast in 1995 and the Channel 4 show TFI Friday, which began in 1996. He moved to BBC Radio 2 in 2005, took over the Top Gear line-up in 2016, and is now listed as working for Virgin Radio. Because his programmes were built around celebrity guests, some readers assume that the Welsh author must have appeared on one of them, and a few low-quality pages repeat that idea as if it were settled.
No confirmed interview, collaboration, or friendship between these two men turned up in the sources reviewed for this article, so that claim should be treated as unverified. The friendship that is well documented in Marks’s circle is the one with Rhys Ifans, who said in a newspaper interview that he got to know Marks when the author had been out of prison for about a year, and the two later agreed that Ifans would play him in a film.
The Third Pairing: An Investor and an Actor
The American Howard Marks, born in 1946, is a different person from the Welsh author. He is known for his work at the investment firm Oaktree and for his widely read investment memos, and Warren Buffett has publicly praised those memos as the first thing he reads when they arrive. Chris Evans the actor is known for the Marvel films, and for a quieter family drama called Gifted in 2017. This third pairing of Howard Marks and Chris Evans appears in search results purely because of the shared names, and no public connection between the investor and the actor was found.
How to Tell Which Pair You Are Reading About
When you research Howard Marks and Chris Evans, the surrounding details usually reveal which people a page is about. Mentions of VAST Data, DeepStorage, Architecting IT, or Storage Unpacked point to the storage analysts, while references to Oxford, Rhys Ifans, or the book Mr Nice point to the Welsh author. Radio 2, Top Gear, and TFI Friday belong to the presenter, Oaktree belongs to the investor, and Marvel belongs to the actor. If a page claims a surprising link between two of these groups and cites no interview, date, or program, it is wise to check it against a second reliable source before trusting it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Howard Marks co-hosts a storage podcast?
The storage analyst Howard Marks is listed as a co-host of the GreyBeards on Storage podcast, which is hosted by Ray Lucchesi. The show offers an analyst view of the data storage market.
Is Chris M. Evans related to the broadcaster Chris Evans?
No relationship has been publicly stated, and their careers are completely separate, one in enterprise technology and the other in broadcasting. The similar names appear to be a coincidence.
When did the Welsh author Howard Marks die?
He died in 2016. A year earlier, in August 2015, the London Real podcast announced that he had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer.
What does the Storage Unpacked podcast cover?
Recent episode listings show topics such as data protection, data sovereignty, open data lakehouses, and the SNIA Storage.AI initiative. The show now appears under the name Technology:Unpacked as part of the Architecting IT network.
How can I check a claim about two people with common names?
Look for a dated source such as an event page, a podcast listing, or an interview that names both people together. Be careful with pages that only repeat each other without any original source.
Conclusion
The most useful way to read a search for Howard Marks and Chris Evans is to decide first which pair you mean, because the answer changes completely between the storage industry, British culture, and finance or film. The only pairing with a confirmed link is the storage analysts, who appeared together at a major industry event and on a technology podcast, while the other combinations come from shared names and nothing more. Checking context clues and dated sources is the simplest way to avoid the many confused or copied claims online.
Disclaimer
This article is for general information only. It is based on publicly available sources and official profiles as they appeared at the time of writing, and details such as job titles, programs, and affiliations may change. The article makes no claim about any private matters and treats unconfirmed online claims as unverified. Please check current official sources before relying on any detail.
EXPLORE MORE: Nelson Peltz and Amancio Ortega: Is There a Link, and How Do the Two Billionaires Compare?
Written by Hassan, founder and editor of NTX Magazine — an independent news and biography publication. Every article is researched and cross-checked against multiple public sources before publishing; see our Sourcing Standards page for details.