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.
Mike joined the business in December 2018 in the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer heading up Rock Rail’s expanding asset management operations. Most recently he has taken up the role of Chief Originations Officer responsible for new rolling stock and rail infrastructure opportunities and fleet delivery across all markets.
With over 10 years of rail industry experience, Mike has a wealth of commercial, franchise bidding and asset delivery expertise.
Before joining Rock Mike was Franchise and Programmes Director and Deputy Managing Director for Abellio Greater Anglia leading the procurement and delivery of over 1000 new rolling stock vehicles, working closely with manufacturers to design, build and deliver modern high specification rolling stock for the passengers of Greater Anglia. Prior to this Mike was Abellio’s UK rail business development director and oversaw the successful expansion of Abellio, winning the ScotRail and Greater Anglia Franchises.
Mike’s previous roles have spanned a number of other infrastructure focussed industries across Europe and North America, including water and waste, working on the finance, structuring and development of large multidisciplinary infrastructure projects.
Steve joined Rock in November 2017 as Commercial Director. Steve has over twenty-five years of experience in the railway industry, with a career encompassing London Underground and UK heavy rail predominantly within the rolling stock arena.
Steve has worked for train operators, rolling stock manufacturers and government agencies as a manager, project manager, adviser and engineering lead, with roles encompassing a broad range of rolling stock and commercial engineering activity. Most recently, he was the Engineering Workstream lead for the development of the rolling stock bid proposition for recent Abellio and Stagecoach group franchise bids and for the procurement and delivery of new rolling stock for the Greater Anglia franchise as Joint Project Manager for the cl.720 Bombardier Aventra build. Steve has previously managed the delivery of new trains for South Eastern trains and the design development of Intercity Express trains on behalf of Hitachi and Great Western railways, alongside the delivery of TBTC signalling and CONNECT radio communications system upgrades across the London Underground network.
Steve brings extensive practical working knowledge and experience to forge collaborative working relationships with project and industry stakeholders necessary to successfully scope, specify and deliver major projects and enhancements into revenue earning service. At Rock, Steve will be primarily taking on the Lessor Representative role for the delivery of the new Bombardier Aventra trains for the South Western franchise.
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.
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.
James joined Rock in September 2017. He is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer with over 10 years’ experience working within the rail industry, predominantly within the rolling stock engineering field. He brings a working knowledge of UK rolling stock operations and maintenance practices, including heavy overhauls, engineering changes and contract management, and has recent experience of the commercial and contractual arrangements associated with new trains procurement and refranchising.
James has previously worked for Stagecoach South Western Trains, initially in engineering management roles to support the operation and maintenance of the South West fleets where he was responsible for leading a team of engineers delivering a wide range of projects and modifications, and interfacing with the relevant ROSCOs. Subsequently James has undertaken roles in the Stagecoach franchise bidding and mobilisation teams including responsibility for the procurement of new rolling stock for the future franchise and the development of the rolling stock strategy.
At Rock, James is the Lessor Representative responsible for the successful delivery of the 25 new Siemens Class 717 trains entering service on GTR’s Great Northern route late 2018 to early 2019 and for the 58 Stadler Flirts due to enter service from 2019 on the Greater Anglia franchise.