Founding director of Optima Consultancy, Mark is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. Operating across commercial finance, strategic change, and business transformation he has 20+ years’ experience in the Payments business.He has a portfolio of other roles past and present: Non-Executive Director at Aspire FT UK Limited; a member of the PSR Panel; Non-Executive Chair of PIPO Service Limited (ByteDance); an advisor for the Consultative Group for Liz Coll, in Elizabeth Helen Coll v Alphabet Inc.; an Ambassador for the Payments Association and a trustee for the M20 Learning Trust (including chair of the Audit & Risk Committee).His time client side was spent with Marks & Spencer Money as a key member of the team that successfully launched the largest ever retail card conversion in Europe and at Capital One Bank where he helped to shape and develop the financial planning function for the UK entry. A seasoned speaker at conferences and events, he has also delivered many training workshops for the major payment networks. His consulting assignments cover multi-payment products with a broad spectrum of retailers, issuers, acquirers and payment schemes across the globe.His recent focus has been helping clients with their strategies and approach to navigate the impact, opportunities and threats to their business from open-finance, together with the development of a seven-year comprehensive benchmark study of UK and German mobile banking and finance apps.