Experience

Executive Summary

Strategic B2B marketing professional with over twenty eight years experience working for global blue chip information technology companies.

•  Considered a thought leader and innovative marketer in areas such as cloud integration, supply chain, manufacturing, automotive and disruptive digital technologies including Internet of Things, Blockchain, & Machine Learning
•  Seasoned industry/product/solution marketing professional with a focus on content marketing, thought leadership and aligning product offerings with key market trends
•  Broad experience of deploying B2B marketing initiatives across the global manufacturing sector, with a particular focus on discrete industrial, high tech and automotive industry sectors
•  Experience of working across the full marketing mix, including regional and global marketing program development, sponsorship, alliance/partner management, new product launch, branding, communications, seasoned conference presenter, industry/competitor analysis and web based marketing activities (leveraging social media channels and blogging)
•  Renowned as someone who can quickly understand a customer’s business and extensive experience presenting to the C-Suite, identify pain points and recommend suitable IT and software technologies
•  Regarded as someone who is a self starter with a, hands on, ‘can do’ attitude, creative, decisive, ambitious, has excellent communication and relationship building skills at all levels. Also has the ability to work either as part of a team or independently when required to do so

Specialties: – Strong knowledge of the manufacturing industry, complimented with knowledge of

– Cloud integration, Internet of Things, Blockchain & supply chain

– PLM tools, inc.CAD, Data Management,Visualisation and web based collaboration tools

– Partner management skills, especially in the motorsport sponsorship & technology sectors

– Space tourism industry, understands key enablers to developing a new business within this emerging industry sector

Employment History

Product Marketing Director – Business Network, OpenText: January 2016 – to date

Transitioned from industry marketing to a product marketing role with OpenText Business Network. The main focus of the role is to look after the day to day product marketing activities for a range of cloud based B2B integration, IoT and identity & access management (IAM) solutions. I manage a team of three excellent Product Marketing Managers and collectively we have responsibility for supporting product marketing related activities for approx. $400M of OpenText revenues. In addition to managing this team I look after our B2B Managed Services offering and I am currently considered a thought leader in how digital transformation will impact our customers and the industry sectors we serve. I am regularly asked to support customer meetings and present at conferences around areas such as IoT, blockchain and AI.

• Delivering product and industry messaging content and thought leadership to support OpenText Cloud Integration Solutions, IoT and IAM value propositions, including areas such as the Industrial Internet, IoT ‘digital twins’, and cloud computing in relation to the supply chain sector
• Developing thought leadership content and positioning around IoT, AI and Blockchain and how these technologies, collectively, can help companies bring greater business value to digital transformation initiatives
• Participating in regular analyst briefings with Gartner, Forrester and IDC to share our vision for the intelligent and connected enterprise.
• An innovative thought leader and spokesman for our business unit, regularly asked to contribute to press and media interviews on subjects such as blockchain in the supply chain, supply chain disruption and digital transformation

Industry Marketing Director – Manufacturing, OpenText: January 2014 – to December 2015

OpenText is a provider of Enterprise Information Management (EIM) solutions which helps companies to simplify, transform and accelerate how information is used across the digital business. OpenText acquired GXS in January 2014 and since the acquisition Mark has continued and expanded his Industry Marketing Director role to drive the global manufacturing strategy across OpenText’s five key business units. In this role, Mark:

• Defined and supported the global go to market strategy for OpenText’s EIM solutions across the manufacturing sector
• Developed industry focused solutions for the manufacturing sector
• Contributed to the global sales pipeline by supporting sales activities and marketing activities across key manufacturing hubs around the world
• Developed thought leadership materials and real world supply chain use cases for new digital disruptive technologies such as the ‘Internet of Things’ & wearable devices
• Embraced the latest digital marketing technologies to define and support global marketing campaigns, including production of video based interviews on the company’s OTTV channel

Industry Marketing Director – Manufacturing, GXS: February 2008 – December 2013

GXS provides cloud based B2B supply chain management and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) services to allow companies to exchange business documents electronically between a company and their respective trading partners. As Industry Marketing Director, Mark drove the global marketing strategy across the automotive, high tech and industrial sectors. Working across a matrix managed marketing structure, Mark’s role included:

• Defining global go to market strategy for the manufacturing sector, analysing industry, macro-economic and regional trends and conducting numerous qualitative research studies to support high profile campaign activities
• Developing thought leadership, solution based campaign deliverables to support B2B outsourcing value proposition, included areas such as ERP integration, Cloud Computing and B2B enablement in the emerging markets. These activities contributed towards a 400% growth in GXS Managed Services related revenues over a seven year period
• Supporting GXS sales team in strategic deal opportunities across the global manufacturing sector, this included providing support for proposal submissions and conducting CXO level presentations around the world
• Conveying GXS product and industry strategy to analyst firms and conducting numerous media interviews for publications such as Manufacturing Digital, Automotive Logistics and Logistics IT magazines
• Being a proficient ‘content engineer’ and blogger with over 250 blogs published, content regularly repurposed to support multiple marketing activities and fully embraced social media tools to engage with customers, prospects and industry leaders

The YouTube video link shown to the right, provides an example of the type of thought leadership content that I have produced during my time at GXS.  This particular example is an on demand webinar relating to the Dodd-Frank Conflict Minerals law and how the US SEC plans to remove conflict minerals from global supply chains.

This is a typical example of the marketing content that I produced whereby the industry issue is extensively researched and then a value proposition is pulled together to position a suitable GXS solution to address this industry challenge.

EMEA Partner Marketing Manager, SAP: November 2007 – February 2008

Mark joined SAP as Partner Marketing Manager working closely with SAP’s SI alliances team. Mark decided early on that this particular role was not ideal based on his career to date and he decided to return to GXS in an expanded industry marketing role.

Industry Marketing Director – Manufacturing, GXS: March 2006 – November 2007

GXS provides cloud based B2B supply chain management and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) services to allow companies to exchange business documents electronically between a company and their respective trading partners. As Industry Marketing Director, Mark’s role involved managing the global marketing strategy and associated campaign activities for the automotive industry. In addition to providing marketing support for both software and outsourced B2B (Managed Services) product lines, Mark’s role included:

• Developing thought leadership and campaign deliverables to support GXS’ Managed Services value proposition across the automotive industry
• Analysing industry, macro-economic and regional trends across the automotive sector
• Supporting GXS sales team in strategic deal opportunities across the global automotive sector, this included providing support for proposal submissions and conducting CXO level presentations around the world
• Working with GXS Corporate development team to identify suitable company acquisition targets

eBusiness Consultant, NB2BC: December 2003 – July 2005

During his time at Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), Mark was involved with two projects, the first with the National B2B Centre, a government backed e-Business initiative tasked with assisting SMEs with their adoption of different types of e-Business technologies. Second project was in partnership with the University of Warwick’s International Automotive Research Centre and involved looking at the future product design environments of Jaguar Land Rover and how they could compress their product development time. Mark’s role included:

• Developing consultancy package targeted at UK West Midlands SME size companies  wishing to improve their collaborative product development  process
• Researching and evaluated product development requirements of SMEs and recommended suitable software solutions for implementation
• Raising the profile of WMG’s £70 Million International Automotive Research Centre through a combination of  improved marketing activities and consistent branding strategy across the full marketing mix
• Developing web based Management Information System demonstration environment allowing Jaguar and Land Rover executives to get access to enterprise wide product development information

International Marketing Manager, PTC: September 1999 – April 2003

PTC is a leading provider of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software solutions, primarily targeted at the engineering and manufacturing sectors. Mark was responsible for deploying numerous high profile marketing programmes which allowed him to gain experience in all areas of the marketing mix. In this broad technical marketing role, Mark’s role included:

• Managing multi- million dollar global sponsorship programme, targeted with increasing global PTC brand awareness, and improving executive level customer relationships to help close multi-million dollar software deals
• Negotiating sponsorship contracts and managed partnerships with high profile motor sport teams such as Ferrari F1, Team Bentley, Maserati and Dallara
• Developing regional marketing plans to exploit the benefits from sponsorship contracts
• Developing initial account based marketing plans across PTC’s top 20 strategic accounts across Europe
• Managing $2Million budget to design a global network of large scale visualisation & multi-media executive briefing centres, these subsequently helped to close multi-million dollar software deals
• Awarding marketing prize in 2001 for highest impact global marketing programme relating to launch of the Warwick Briefing Centre
• Managing local hardware partner program, eg leveraging co-marketing activities with Sun Microsystems, HP and SGI

The design and management of the PTC Warwick Collaboration Centre was one of the more complex projects that I have completed during my marketing career. Working with external hardware and audio visual technology partners, designing the centre’s branding, producing the launch video through to developing and delivering many of the executive level presentations, this project allowed me to showcase many different marketing and technical skills.

The video shown to the right was produced for the launch of the PTC Warwick facility in 2000.

Partner Manager, McLaren Marketing: December 1998 – September 1999

McLaren Marketing Ltd manages the sponsorship and promotional needs of the McLaren Formula One Team. Mark’s role included working with key sponsors to leverage the McLaren brand within the sponsors’ B2B and B2C marketing programmes. This allowed Mark to acquire extensive branding, communication and event management skills. Developed strong relationship building skills with high level executives of McLaren’s sponsoring companies. F1 provides the ideal platform to promote a global brand and Mark was fortunate to be able to work in this unique marketing environment, his role included:

• Managing day to day relationships between McLaren and their key technology partners
• Working with sponsors to leverage and exploit the McLaren brand image within their respective marketing programmes
• Establishing strong executive level relationship building skills while hosting McLaren’s sponsors and their guests during GP races and tours of their  F1 manufacturing facility
• Developing McLaren Group presentation for the 1999 season, used on all factory tours and at F1 races
• Initiating co-partner marketing activities between Warsteiner Beer and Mobil Oil to design an F1 car simulator

Providing technical training to marketing team members on the features and specifications of McLaren’s 1999 F1 car

I learnt a great deal from my time at McLaren, even though I was only at the company for just under a year, the ethos and quality of work that I learnt at McLaren has remained with me through every role and marketing project that I have been involved with ever since.

Today, McLaren is involved with many different projects, from Formula One Racing to road car production, from materials and technologies research through to executive catering services.  If you have never heard of McLaren then the BBC produced video shown to the right will provide some great insights in to the group and its activities,  especially the  production of their latest road car.

Presales Consultant, Computervision: September 1992 – December 1998

The role of pre-sales / marketing support consultant was to assist Computervision and latterly PTC’s UK major account sales and marketing organisations. (PTC acquired CV in late 1998). CV provided Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CADCAM) solutions to a variety of industries including aerospace, defence, automotive and general mechanical sectors.  Mark’s primary role was to develop presentations and demonstrations of CV software solutions, this included customer presentations, seminar / exhibition support and to provide technical images / information for regional and corporate marketing materials. This allowed Mark to acquire good communication and relationship building skills, it also provided him with experience of working closely with CV’s major global accounts including BAE SYSTEMS, Airbus and Land Rover. Mark’s role included:

• Developing a standard methodology for presenting CV’s product development solutions to executive level customers from  the aerospace, automotive and shipbuilding industries
• Managing partner activities with Sun Microsystem’s and Hewlett Packard to help co-fund marketing activities
• Acquiring extensive branding skills associated with graphics, website and video production
• Awarded UK Presales Prize in 1996 for first presales consultant to embrace and understand the benefits of using the internet within a  product development software demonstration