Mark Williamson Profile
Dr. Mark Williamson
BEng 1996, PhD 2003
Director of Innovations – The Carbon Trust
“Bristol was fantastic and my experiences there had an enormous positive impact on my life, both at the time and since.”
After his engineering degree, Mark stayed on at Bristol for a Masters by Research in wireless communications. This was followed by six months working for Hewlett Packard Laboratories in California. In 1998, Mark joined Accenture (then Andersen Consulting) where he spent 8 years working on technology development and strategy for a range of clients. During this period he also worked part time on his PhD – a continuation of his previous research at Bristol – and completed this in 2003. In his final years with Accenture, as a Senior Manager, Mark led a team of over 60 staff in London, Bangalore and Malaga, developing software solutions for the London Stock Exchange. In 2005, Mark gained an MBA from the International School of Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland, where he received the President’s Award for outstanding achievement.
In 2006, Mark joined the Carbon Trust, a government-backed private company with a mission to “accelerate the move to a low carbon economy”. Mark is now Director of the Carbon Trust’s Innovations group and leads their work on developing clean energy technologies, such as offshore wind, wave and tidal power. Mark is also a Non Executive Director of a new technology venture developing next-generation “organic” solar cells. Away from work, Mark has also created the website www.whatyoucando.co.uk to explain actions that individuals can take to reduce their impact on climate change.
Mark is a Chartered Engineer, a Sainsbury Management Fellow, a Member of the Institute of Directors (IoD) and a member of the Institute and Engineering and Technology (IET). Mark lives in Surrey with his wife Kate and two young daughters, Emily and Daisy.
Mark says:
“ I’m still very close to friends I made there – in fact I saw lots of them and their families just last weekend at a barbeque!
A few years ago we were at a friend’s wedding and I remember counting over 20 people there that I’d first met at Churchill Hall back in 1993. That’s a great indication of how important our time together at Bristol was. I’m sure we’ll still be sharing our old stories in another few decades too.”