Meet the podcast host
Mark Greaves
Director
Mark is a director and host of our podcast. He founded our Corporate Finance team and has over 25 years of transactional experience across a range of business sectors, deal types and locations, focused in sectors ranging across media, manufacturing and engineering, retail and technology.
Mark was also responsible for the firm’s international network, PKF, including organising trade and similar visits to China and the US as well as building strong relations with firms around the world.
We turned the tables by putting some questions to him to find out more…
What is your role at PKF Francis Clark?
I was recruited into the firm in 1995 and created and grew the Corporate Finance team focusing on advising SMEs on acquisitions, disposals, MBOs and equity/debt funding. Our Corporate Finance team Team is now one of the largest and most active in the country.
We have advised on numerous high profile deals such as Dartington Glass, Sutton Seeds and lately, many energy projects such as wind farms and solar parks. I was also responsible for our relationship with the global PKF network, which took me on trade visits to China, US and Europe.
If you were to describe the podcast to someone who hadn’t heard it, what would you say?
It’s a relaxed talk with some of the region’s leading entrepreneurs about their own and their business’s journey. It features anecdotes and stories that may serve as an inspiration to current and future business leaders, and also the occasional (bad) joke.
What is it that you enjoy about hosting the podcast?
My career has required me to understand different businesses (and individuals) and it is quite therapeutic to be able to do this in a relaxed surrounding. I love the original tales. A 16 year old cold-selling clotted cream for Rodda’s around the posh hotels in London in the 1920s, or selling Granny Gottards’ ice cream wholesale in Dubai when you know no-one and don’t have any ice-cream for them to try. Also, a lot of the episodes discuss environment issues in business and I think that’s really important, and will be helpful to others.
What podcasts do you listen to?
Apart from Business Noodles and Doodles – I like the “No Such Thing as Fish” QI spinoff for its irreverent corrections to assumptions about modern life. “Goodfellows” is a very interesting and challenging (albeit quite right wing) discussion forum from the US Hoover institute. Finally I am a movie buff so like “Kermode and Mayo’s” movie review podcast.
What do you like to do outside work?
I love to travel. I have walked across Beirut, stumbled into either a funeral or wedding in Japan (they were very friendly and didn’t want us to leave), seen the Northern Lights in Iceland (on my wedding anniversary) and been to every Disney park in the world.
If you had a dinner party and could invite anyone – alive or dead – who would be on your guest list?
This is difficult as there are so many. I would love to discuss bravery and race relations with Rosa Parks, science with Stephen Hawking, travel with David Attenborough, comedy with Rowan Atkinson, music with David Byrne (or David Bowie?) and movies with Tim Burton.