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.
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).
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.
Charles joined Rock in July 2024. He is a chartered accountant with a background of 23 years advising on infrastructure transactions.
Charles is responsible for all financial aspects of the Rock Group, including financial strategy, group and project reporting, risk management, investor support, treasury and HR.
He sits on the Management Board and the Investment Committee.
Prior to joining Rock, Charles was a Corporate Finance partner at PwC focused on the infrastructure sector. He brings experience of project finance, M&A, capital raising and regulatory and government advice. He was the UK Transport and Logistics leader and a government relationship partner. He has worked across transport, energy transition, telecoms and social infrastructure. He has secured over £14bn of equity and debt finance for complex infrastructure transactions. He was a member of the Corporate Finance Exco responsible for People.