Mark founded Rock Rail in 2014, having established sister company Rock Infrastructure in 2011, following a highly successful career in law at Clifford Chance (10 years) and DLA Piper (18 years).
Mark has over 35 years of experience working in the City of London, New York and Europe. For the last 28 years, he has specialised in developing innovative funding, financing and procurement strategies for major infrastructure projects, working to ensure the alignment of public and private sector interests and to deliver substantially improved public sector value for money.
Since founding Rock Rail, Mark has led the business in securing £3 billion of institutional investment into new passenger rolling stock for UK rail franchises. He is a director for the companies established to finance and lease each of Rock Rail’s fleets to the rail franchises.
Under Rock Infrastructure, Mark was Commercial Director on the landmark Mersey Gateway Bridge Project and principal advisor on the transformation of CAE’s helicopter training facility PPP.
As a lawyer, Mark created and led DLA Piper’s Commercial and Projects Group and in 2007 became Global Head of DLA’s Infrastructure and Defence Sector.
Matthew has over 18 years of experience of the infrastructure sector.
Since joining Rock in 2011, Matthew has played a leading role in the negotiation of the commercial aspects of all of Rock’s fleet. He also played a lead role in the procurement and delivery of the Mersey Gateway Bridge PPP, which successfully opened in October 2017. In January 2020, Matthew started as Rock’s Head of Compliance and Risk to support the successful delivery of Rock’s fleets and later that year became Rock’s Chief Investment Officer.
Matthew has acted as a deal principal, financial advisor, a joint lead arranger and bookrunner and a legal advisor on infrastructure projects which gives him a unique perspective and insight into how to structure a project to bring it to a successful conclusion.
Matthew has specialized in PPP across all sectors from roads, parking and airports to the healthcare and education sectors, both in the UK, Europe and North America.
Prior to joining Rock, Matthew worked as a Vice President in the Royal Bank of Scotland’s infrastructure finance group (in New York) and was an Associate in DLA Piper’s commercial and projects team (in London).
George joined Rock in January 2019. His role as Director of Health, Safety and Cyber Security covers Rock Rail’s asset management activities and other business operations. George has responsibility for all aspects of Rock Rail’s Safety Management Systems including safety assurance responsibilities for all fleets under its management. He has 25 years of experience in the health and safety arena.
George was previously the Director of System Safety and Health at the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) where he was responsible for RSSB’s work to support the rail industry in all aspects of its health and safety management and assurance processes and capabilities. George also played a key role in the setting of the national rail health and safety strategy and in delivering associated programmes, including sponsoring the successful relaunch of the national supplier qualification scheme, RISQS.
Prior to his work at RSSB he worked as a consultant on safety assurance of complex safety critical systems, following previous roles in the railway supply sector designing rail systems.
George has a PhD in Computer Science, specialising in railway risk modelling and is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of the Safety and Reliability Society. He is the Visiting Professor of Railway System Safety at the Institute of Rail Research, Huddersfield.
Nick has worked in the infrastructure sector since the mid-1990s when he was part of the team that privatised the UK’s rolling stock leasing companies. Since then he has focused in the transport and equipment sectors acting as financial advisor, arranger and financial equity sponsor. He has acted on behalf of both the public and private sectors which has given him important insights into the key drivers which ensure projects can be bid and delivered such that they meet all stakeholders needs.
Over recent years he has focussed on establishing Rock’s rail leasing business, using his experience of the sector and funding to develop a more competitive funding structure and build a successful business which funds and will lease over 1,500 vehicles in the UK.
Prior to joining Rock Infrastructure in August 2012 he was at Amber Infrastructure, (manager and advisor to a number of infrastructure funds, including International Public Partnerships, “INPP”), Babcock & Brown, Societe Generale and Hambros Bank.
Jo joined the team in April 2018 with over 20 years of experience in the leasing industry most recently focussing on the rolling stock market. Jo is responsible for all financial aspects of Rock Rail’s asset management services and capabilities for its current and future asset management portfolio. Prior to joining Rock Jo headed up the Financial Control and Risk team at ROSCO Eversholt Rail group for three years. In this position she was responsible for finance activities on its portfolio of Passenger and Freight rolling stock assets, Cross London Trains and the onboarding of new shareholders following a private equity exit.
Joined Rock December 2016
Trevor is a partner in Rock’s origination team and has over 20 years of experience in the European infrastructure market working across the transport, social infrastructure, power and renewables and communications sectors. Before joining Rock, he worked at major financing institutions, including Deutsche Bank, CIT Bank and, most recently, as regional project finance team head at HSBC, and he has been involved in many landmark financing deals, bringing together major clients, innovative commercial and financing structuring, and focussed and effective project management.
Joined Rock March 2022
Joined Rock March 2020