Mark Denton - Managing Director

Born and educated in the Midlands, Mark has always had a passion for people and performance. This was first nurtured on the shop floor of his family’s Northamptonshire based shoe manufacturing company where he worked in the school holidays, instigating several intiatives to improve productivity and motivation.

His early working life was spent running his own car valet business at 17 years old, before he sold it to his competitor to attend Leicester University as a mature student at 21. Three years later he surfaced with an honours degree in Business and HR management, which he first put to use as an Account Executive for a media agency in London.

But city life was not his destiny, and two years later he left to concentrate on his other passion – sailing. 4 years and 40,000 sea miles later, Mark entered the gruelling selection procedure against 186 others to be a skipper on the BT Global Challenge 2000/2001, the ultimate environment to put everything he had learnt about sailing and working with people into practice. Victorious, he went on to skipper ‘BP Explorer’, the yacht sponsored by energy giant BP in this toughest of round the world yacht races.

In 2001, Mark established the dynamic people development consultancy MAXVMG (www.maxvmg.com). As well as nurturing a loyal following for it’s leadership and team development activity form a diverse range of clients, the company has also won awards for it’s interactive e-learning module entitled ‘Safe, Happy, Fast’, based on the leadership and team learning from the Global Challenge race.

Mark is also a sought after meeting facilitator and executive coach, although what he is probably most noted for is his ability as a speaker. His keynote presentation ‘Leadership and teamwork in the eye of the storm’ has been seen by thousands worldwide and to much acclaim.

Mark lives with his wife, two children, and two dogs near Southampton in Hampshire. Hobbies include skiing, keeping fit, running, kayaking and of course sailing!