Mark St John Qualter Email & Phone Number

London, Greater London, Gb

Founded in 2017, Control Now is a London-based ‘fintech’ company, whose purpose is to create stakeholder value, through disruptive and transformative technology solutions, to the regulatory reporting market by improving the quality of reporting and ultimately contributing to market stability and growth through data transparency. It is privately owned and controlled by its co-founders, who, together with the team, have over 20 years of direct, relevant industry experience. Its solutions are entirely technology-based and self-configurable, and the service is supported by dedicated account management. It has product and development teams in the UK and Bulgaria who work seamlessly together in an agile development framework. To date, Control Now has processed over half a billion records through its modular, integrated suite of assurance, accuracy, quality and reporting tools. Currently, it serves over thirty high-quality clients made up of banks, brokers and asset managers. I am responsible for (a) the business and commercial strategy of Control Now, and (b) the Finance and Accounting functions. My role includes ensuring that the company's sales, marketing and client-facing efforts align to scale the business successfully. My role is to think creatively about the commercial relevance of all aspects of the business and to optimise them where possible. I also support the founders in defining the business vision and strategy.

London, Gb

Designed, created, scaled organically and through acquisition, an 850-person ALSP (alternative legal services provider business) from scratch, leading it profitably on three continents through the challenge of Covid, winning significant new work from major blue chips and integrating its operations. Rapidly taking the whole business online when Covid first broke with no loss or degradation of service. Learnt the importance of clear messaging and implementing change management disciplines, including securing top-level buy-in. Developed an innovative commercial strategy more akin to a software business, based upon synergies, cost savings and a constant stream of new services and enhancements in response to the changing face of the legal industry and emerging, unfulfilled client needs. This was based on our research and compiled client feedback.Integrated several large and diverse teams from the Group into the division. Devised and led the acquisition of Mindcrest, Inc. to accelerate the strategy, providing scale and access to a high-quality delivery platform which would yield initially annualised savings of £2.9m. The shares rose by 15% the day after the announcement. Assembled a diverse and high-performing leadership executive team of specialists based in the US, UK and India. Member of DWF Executive Board.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

Following my success in transforming the speed and efficiency of RBS’ SME commercial real estate loans process, I was asked to explore the possibility of using AI across its corporate banking division. This was a new position, requiring the establishment not only of its goals but also the capability and the relationships to deliver them. The result was a very successful first step and cautious adoption of the use of leading-edge technology to support RBS’ commercial objectives.Researched, wrote and delivered the business case for a new team agreed by the divisional Board, giving permission to proceed and the necessary funding. Recruited a team of specialist project managers with banking and technical backgrounds, tasking them initially with facilitating conversations at all levels across the bank to understand where challenges and possible opportunities for AI were. Created additional capacity by seeking out potential external AI suppliers and forming partnerships, further to adding several contractor developers to the team. Learnt the importance of priority and expectation management to keep engaged stakeholders positive. Designed a formula to prioritise AI projects, coping with the mismatch between the huge demand from the business for my team’s services and the resources at our disposal.Successfully deployed several use case instances for enhanced predictive analytics, risk management and process simplification and optimisation.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

Inspired by the considerable potential for a streamlined and technology-enabled loan approvals process I had perceived in my customer-facing role, I successfully lobbied RBS Real Estate leadership to allow me to design, build and pilot a new approach to real estate commercial lending. The objective was to approve loans at a considerably greater speed which is what our customers were crying out for, without sacrificing sound commercial risk management or portfolio quality. This I achieved.Successfully forming a partnership with a commercial real estate expert to decide the variables a successful streamlined process would analyse. Building the algorithm to reach a decision in a fraction of the previous process’ time. Piloting the system successfully, comparing its speed with that of human analysts given the same data to reach the lending decision, found that the algorithm reached the same conclusion in 30 minutes, compared to the traditional human decision process, which was considerably longer. Achieving positive customer feedback from this much faster decision-making enabling quicker progress of commercial dealmaking. Yielding significant savings through process simplification, rationalisation and improvement.Validated my hypothesis that listening to customers is a very valuable catalyst to developing innovative ideas, especially when combined with one’s own research and knowledge and ability to develop disruptive strategies. Winning the support of senior stakeholders within RBS for this step change in the business process, including now Group Chief Executive and the bank’s Head of Real Estate Credit.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

I was tasked with merging the regional commercial and corporate divisions to improve the customer experience while delivering a sustainable transformation in both revenue and profitability. Under my leadership, the team’s ability grew into the best in the region. Successfully created a new combined business unit out of the two divisions, giving them a shared focus, policies and processes while managing the change to retain the right staff, delivering the merger with no disruption in client service. Transformed the customer experience, analysing data and personally attending the conduct of numerous bank-client interactions, leading to a realigning of our approach and activity, increasing business and profitability. Brought valuable transferable insights to the real estate division board from my background as a Director of Strategy, introducing the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and a new customer journey focussed on the acutest needs, with exceptional service at all touchpoints. Recruited an exceptional team from both internal and external hires, merging existing local and professional knowledge with the skills from other business contexts that the transformation required. Delivered numerous successes from the merger of the division, including an increase in the NPS by 10 points over time, and a 400% increase in activity, all achieved without incurring any bad debts.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

This was a new role reporting to the divisional CEO created at the inception of CSG and I was a member of the divisional executive board. CSG was a multi-billion concern, substantial in size and scope, housing the portfolio of ancillary corporate banking services (invoice finance, factoring, asset finance, customer deposits, commercial cards, transaction banking).The key purpose of the role was to bring together these units into a cohesive division, extracting synergies where possible and developing an overarching strategy that would optimise the performance of each of its constituents. This involved a considerable amount of stakeholder management of the business leaders. A cohesive strategy was developed and delivered to the PLC board which all the businesses in the division contributed to and supported. Developed and implemented governance protocols and a divisional reporting framework.Supported each of the businesses and their strategy leads on developing business level strategies, consistent with the overarching plan.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

Leading the Strategy function for this subsidiary of the bank. A company board director of RBS Invoice Finance Holdings Limited.Responsibility for developing and facilitating the strategy of the business. Other areas under my leadership included the Client Experience, External Marketing and Internal Communications, Sales and Channel Management, Product and Proposition and "TCF" (Treating Customers Fairly). Devised and implemented the social media strategy establishing the business on key channels such as Twitter and LinkedIn when this was very new in the sector.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

Head of the Corporate Invoice Finance business for both origination and relationship management covering clients with sales of £25 million and upwards.Teams in major cities around the country.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

Leading the Corporate Banking business in Yorkshire and Humberside. Covering the large corporate and mid-markets.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

Leading the team that covered large corporate banking customers in the region. Responsible for origination and relationship management.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

Leading a small team covering leading transportation corporates in the UK and across Europe.

Led the Bank's business activities in Northern England and Scotland which covered large corporate banking clients.Sanwa Bank is now part of MUFJ.

Mba

Ba (Hons), Hindi And Sinhalese