Mark is endlessly curious about how human beings behave in groups, and passionate about transformational change in individuals, organisations, and communities. He leads Taylor Clarke’s Leadership Practice and is also an Associate Fellow at University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, teaching on a variety of executive leadership development programmes and negotiation programmes.

He provides consulting, facilitation, executive coaching, and group coaching support for people wrestling with leadership challenges, complexity, and conflict, focused on developing individual and collective capacities to produce high-performing teams. Working from the presenting symptoms to underlying dynamics to secure transformational breakthroughs. Mark uses case-in-point incidents as a springboard for developing a client’s sensemaking and confidence and competence in action, by working on both internal dynamics (leadership of self) and relational and systems dynamics (leadership of team and task).

Project Examples:
• Executive Coaching and Impact Group Coaching of senior civil servants leading the UK Government’s Major Projects Portfolio (approx. £ 805 Bn).
• Programme Director for the CIPD/Saïd Business School Leadership Development Programme for Chief People Officers from NHS and Civil Service.
• Programme Director for Saïd Business School “Jordan Future Leaders Programme” for senior civil servants from Jordan.
• Facilitator on the CEO Leadership Programme for CEOs of Further Education Colleges across the UK.
• Facilitator on Centre for Democracy & Peacebuilding’s “Leadership Innovation Labs” and the “Fellowship Programme” for political leaders, civil society leaders, and business leaders from Northern Ireland.
• Executive Coaching for senior leaders, including in the Scottish Prison Service, in Police Scotland, in a major global energy company, and in a fast-growing biotechnology company.

Mark’s coaching and leadership development practice draws upon his 30+ years’ experience at the intersection of leadership, complexity, and conflict. He worked as corporate lawyer in the UK and India; served in Iraq with the British Army Officer and British Foreign & Commonwealth Office; and with different governments and non-governmental organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Papua New Guinea, and Jordan, where he served for 12 years as CEO of Generations For Peace, a global peacebuilding organisation with 22,000+ peacebuilders in 52 countries.

Qualifications:
• MSc in Consulting and Coaching for Change (magna cum laude) from University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and HEC Paris
• MA in Executive Management from Université Lyon 1
• LLB-Hons and Diploma in Legal Practice from University of Edinburgh
• British Army Officer, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
• Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 7 Certification in Executive Coaching and Mentoring
• Certificate in Transformative Dialogue from the Nansen Centre for Peace and Dialogue in Norway
• Certificate in Community Dispute Resolution from Colorado State University
• Certificate in Non-Violent Communication from the Centre for Nonviolent Communication
• Certificate in Conflict Resolution, Transformation and Peacebuilding from the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies
• Certificate in NEO-PI-R Primary Colours® Leadership Assessments by Edgecumbe
• Certificate in Group Relations from The Tavistock Institute on Group Relations
• Certificate in Artificial Intelligence from University of Oxford
• Certificate in Living with AI from The Data Lab and the Scottish AI Alliance.

Mark was awarded MBE by HM Queen Elizabeth II for his work in Iraq 2003-2005; the United States Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service 2004; CEO of the Year 2022 by CEO Monthly; and the 2022 Peacemaker Award by Brigham Young University Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution. He is a member of The Change Leaders and the Law Society of Scotland, a Writer to His Majesty’s Signet, and RSA Fellow.