“That grounding, in how the market really works at the level of the desk and the deal, has never left me.”
The market
Mark left school at seventeen and in 1977 joined the insurance brokers Andrew Weir as a claims broker. In 1979 he moved to the syndicates at Lloyd’s, and he spent the next eighteen years in and around the underwriting room as a specialist claims technician.
At CP Attenborough Syndicate 144 he handled toxic tort and asbestos claims from the United States and Canada, and managed a large inwards reinsurance book through its run-off. He rose to claims manager and syndicate manager there, and in 1993 moved to Equity Red Star. In his words, he was on the front line in “some of the most tumultuous years in the Market’s history”.
He was a founder member of the Non-Marine Association’s claims committee, now part of the LMA, and chaired the UK Catastrophe Claims Committee. He was part of the original group that delivered ECF, the Lloyd’s electronic claims file, and at Equity Red Star he led the first ISO 9002 accreditation for a Lloyd’s non-marine syndicate.
A life of building
In 1997 Mark left employment to become an entrepreneur. He founded Davies Managed Systems, one of the UK’s first outsourced claims management businesses, and led it into the mid 2000s. It ran on the web at a time when very few firms did, with much of its data in what would now be called the cloud, and it brought him attention in the national and trade press. The company still trades today.
He went on to co-found Lamb, a creative marketing agency for insurance and financial services, which later joined forces with the brand agency brandformula. As chief operating officer of WHJE, the holding company behind them, he helped build a group that also took in brandformula Consulting and the insurance PR firm Full Circle.
He helped found Wrisk, one of Britain’s earliest insurtechs, and chairs its insurance advisory board. Running these firms taught him how brand works at first hand. In his phrase, operational merit and relational esteem multiply to produce commercial value, or fail to. He exited his businesses in 2017.
“Early on, a healthy curiosity made me always question the norm and be an agent for change.”Mark Huxley, Elsewhen, 2020
Chair and mentor
Through Huxley Advisory, which he set up at the end of 2017, Mark works as a chairman and mentor to growing firms. He is non-executive chairman of BareRock, a managing general agent for the professional indemnity of financial advisers, and of PeopleClear SMCR, a compliance technology business he has advised since 2019. He is a non-executive director of Red Bar Law and a strategic adviser to FraudOps, which uses AI in fraud and claims investigation.
He has mentored founders at the Lloyd’s Lab, the market’s innovation accelerator, since it opened. In 2026 the Market People Awards at Guildhall gave him a special commendation for that work and named him highly commended runner-up for Lifetime Achievement. Awards Intelligence included him in its Top 100 Influential People for 2025.
In October 2026 he became Chief Executive of FOIL, the Forum of Insurance Lawyers, which represents around 8,000 insurance lawyers and paralegals and which he had advised since 2018. He is writing a book, The Brand Alchemist, on the idea behind his Brand Impact Workshops: Merit multiplied by Esteem equals Impact.
The City
In 2017 Mark was admitted a Freeman of what was then the Guild of Entrepreneurs. He served as its Master in 2023/24, and during his year of office he led its elevation to full livery. In February 2025 it became the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs, 112th in the order of precedence. He is now a Past Master and chairs the Company’s charitable trust.
Since 2025 he has chaired the Financial Services Group of Livery Companies, which brings the livery companies of the financial services sector together in support of the Mayoralty, the Court of Aldermen and the City of London Corporation. He also sits on the committee of the Broad Street Ward Club.
He is a passionate advocate of social inclusion and neuro-inclusion. He has chaired the fundraising board and then the trustees of City Gateway, the Tower Hamlets education charity, and he is a trustee of the neurodiversity charity NEURO and of the Insurance Museum. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
With Group Partners he advises founders and leadership teams on growth, drawing on fifty years of building businesses in markets where trust is everything.
The path
From the claims desk to the civic City.
- 1977
Leaves school at seventeen and joins Andrew Weir as a claims broker.
- 1979
Moves to the Lloyd’s syndicates, at DW Graves Syndicate 471.
- 1984
Claims manager, then syndicate manager, at CP Attenborough Syndicate 144.
- 1993
Joins Equity Red Star, where he leads the first ISO 9002 accreditation for a Lloyd’s non-marine syndicate.
- 1997
Founds Davies Managed Systems.
- 2007
Co-founds Lamb, the marketing agency for insurers.
- 2015
Helps found the insurtech Wrisk.
- 2017
Exits his businesses. Admitted a Freeman of the Guild of Entrepreneurs.
- 2018
Starts Huxley Advisory. Begins advising FOIL and mentoring at the Lloyd’s Lab.
- 2020
Becomes a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
- 2023
Master of the Company of Entrepreneurs.
- 2024
Becomes non-executive chairman of BareRock and of PeopleClear SMCR.
- 2025
The Company becomes the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs. He takes the chair of the Financial Services Group of Livery Companies.
- 2026
Recognised at the Market People Awards. Becomes Chief Executive of FOIL. Joins the Group Partners Expert Network.
In his own words
“FOIL has a voice, and I want to make sure that when it speaks, people listen.”
“Insurance is a force for good and now is the time to make sure it lives up to its billing as such.”
“There is an old adage, nothing is not insurable, it’s the price that judges.”
“I am always astonished at the diversity of fantastic propositions and how quickly the cohort members get under the skin of understanding what the Market does.”
“I have spent a career watching the industry positively respond to a myriad of catastrophic situations, quietly and without making a fuss.”