Specialist financial services consulting firm Sionic has announced the appointment of Mark Humphries as its new Chairman. Mark takes up his role with immediate effect, succeeding Tony Solway, who stepped down at the end of 2020. Mark’s appointment marks an acceleration of Sionic’s strategic ambition to become the pre-eminent supplier of business, operations and people development services to the world’s leading banks and financial institutions.
Mark Humphries is one of the finance sector’s most experienced business leaders. A Chartered Accountant by background, Mark is a specialist in fast-paced growth within private equity backed firms and an expert in strategy execution, accelerated growth and transformation, and in leveraging technology and data to drive client solutions. Mark’s career includes handling mergers and acquisitions for FTSE 100 group, building a highly successful corporate finance advisory firm and serving as CEO of Huntswood, an award-winning B2B professional services firm advising the financial services and energy sectors. He now holds several non-executive and advisory roles.
Sionic has over 25 years’ experience in providing advisory and consulting services to corporate, investment and private banks, clearing houses and exchanges, asset and wealth managers. Its specialist teams focus on banking and market operations; data and technology; financial crime and fraud prevention including cyber-security; governance; leadership and people development; product development, distribution, benchmarking and sourcing models; risk, regulation and compliance. The firm has c 300 staff based across North America, Europe and Asia and is backed by Livingbridge, one of the UK’s leading mid-market private equity investors.
Sionic CEO Craig Sher comments: “This is a pivotal moment for Sionic and a key appointment. Mark is a pace-setter and his career achievements are inspirational. Despite everything that 2020 threw at the world, Sionic had another successful year, hard won through the resilience of our people, the quality of our work and the strength of our relationships. We’re now even more determined to become a truly world-leading firm and Mark is exactly the person to help us step up the pace. I fully expect him to push us to exceed even our own expectations and I’m really excited to be working with him.”
Sionic Chairman Mark Humphries says: “The Chairman should be a strategic accelerant. I believe that is about three things: a clear strategy, a sharp commercial focus and ensuring that people can be their absolute best selves at work. Sionic is an energising prospect across all those dimensions. It has an enviable client base, a strong global leadership team and outstanding talent across the firm. It also has a track record of first-class delivery, with a unique blend of people development skills as well as technical domain expertise. Most of all, it has the will to succeed. I can’t wait to get started.”
