As a member of the Executive Team of the RICS, Mark has responsibility to shape the direction of RICS and to fully contribute to the leadership of the organisation. Mark is responsible for ensuring growth in the RICS' EMEA (Europe [including the UK], Middle East and Africa) business and that new segments are developed. He also takes a lead on the organisation's development of global sales, marketing and customer service strategies. Through a strong network across the EMEA region Mark is responsible for the gathering and understanding of market insight, using this to form and develop strategies based on evidence based assessments and priorities. There is a strong focus on engaging with members, especially regional chairmen and boards working with them, to establish delivery of agreed plans. Prior to joining RICS in February 2011, Mark was director of corporate development for ifs School of Finance, responsible for the take up of ifs’ professional qualifications and executive education programmes. Before that Mark was regional director EMEA for Cohen Brown Management Group (a recognised leader in sales and service cultural change) and chief operating officer of Barclays Wealth’s International Personal and Premier Banking Division. Mark has considerable strategic- level sales and business development experience as well as proven success in building large customer-centric service-based operations. Mark completed professional qualifications as a retail banker and then added a BSc (Hons) degree part-time whilst working for Barclays. He has a keen interest in developing people to their full potential, with a real focus on the interaction between staff and customers. Mark sits on the board of Professions for Good, a collaboration of the bodies responsible for the entry policy, professional standards and qualifications across many of the UK’s largest professions. They work together in the public interest to uphold fair access and meritocracy; professional standards and ethics; and fact- and practice-based public policy.
