Speaker

Mark is a senior executive, thought leader and a specialist with a wealth of experience in the financial & banking industry. He currently lives and works in the UAE, where he leads Standard Chartered’s Financial Markets (FM) business in Africa & the Middle East (AME). He is energised by the diversity and complexity of the AME region and he believes that the Bank is well positioned to serve its clients’ interests by making the most of the insights, talents and judgements of a diverse workforce to help the region realise its full potential. Until recently, Mark was the Chief Operating Officer of Financial Markets and was based in Singapore. In that role Mark was responsible for all of FM’s business operations globally. This included developing and executing the business strategy, ensuring exemplary control and governance through functional alignment and engagement and enabling business growth in a productive and disciplined way. Mark started his career with Ernst & Young in the UK and his interaction with financial services clients led him to a role with Merrill Lynch in London, where he worked as a product controller. In 1998, Mark joined Deutsche Bank (DB) also as a product controller, before pivoting to become the business manager supporting the bank’s growing credit business. Mark rose quickly up the ranks during the ensuing 13 years, building DB’s middle office before taking on the global credit and emerging markets COO role in 2009. He left for ICAP as Group COO for a year before re-joining DB in 2013 to head the global investment bank operations. Mark believes the banking industry has entered a critical moment due to the intersection of digitisation, innovation and evolving clients’ needs and the expectation of the industry to take a leadership position in addressing today’s greatest environmental, social and governance issues.