At Oxford, Clarke studied Persian with Arabic, reputedly paying his way through gambling, before graduating as BA (proceeding MA).

From August 1987 to May 1988, Clarke was chairman of Majestic Wine Corporation Inc, a United States company which owned a chain of 104 stores trading as Liquor Barn in California and Arizona.

[7] In 1998, Clarke founded Safestore, building it into the UK's third largest self storage company before selling it to Bridgepoint Capital for £44million in August 2003.

Although featured in archive interviews and footage as part of a three-part Sky Documentary series entitled The Man Who Bought Cricket, Clarke declined to participate personally.

Protective of his family private life, when his name appeared in the Sunday Times Rich List in the mid-1990s, Clarke took steps to shield his financial interests from public view.