Mark Wood

Explorer Mark Wood trekked to the North Pole on the Race Against Time Exploration, highlighting climate change and his next planned trip is to Everest in 2017, where he will connect with 8848 schools via Skype, enabling them to follow Mark’s progress throughout the expedition.

Mark is an inspirational orator and is at ease communicating with schoolchildren or CEO’s. He has over 30 major expeditions to date and is able to share his experiences through his leadership talks, focusing on the similarities between the difficult challenges faced by organisations and the challenges faced by explorers in very dangerous and hostile regions.  He is ranked as one of Skype’s top 5 global communicators, has been part of major BBC and Channel 5 documentaries, filmed his own award winning documentaries and helped lead the Top Gear Presenters to the Magnetic North Pole.

Mark operates in some of the most remote extreme cold areas of our planet from long range polar expeditions to covering 8000 metre peaks. However, he was born in the centre of UK where the car industry would have been the natural avenue for him to take. Mark's ability to look at life differently and seize opportunities has led him in a career through the military and rescue to now being one of the most dedicated polar explorers of our time.

In 2013, Mark led a small team on a 72 day expedition through the Himalayas to the summit of Mount Everest - through his sponsors Skype/Microsoft he connected on route - visually and in real time to over 10,000 students around the world to communicate an honest portrayal of modern day exploration delivered through high end technology. Mark made the tough decision to abort the expedition a few hundred metres from the top of Everest to rescue his expedition partner.

The decisions made in minus 45 degree temperatures, 50 mph winds, on the edge of the summit of Everest that night encapsulates the true tests and rationale required for vital design making. Mark's leadership skills developed over 30 major expeditions around the world demonstrate the parallels of extreme leadership and business leadership.