About Us

Mark has been involved in the world of expeditions and adventure travel in one way or another for over 27 years and has worked professionally on all of the world‘s continents enjoying (and at times suffering) all climatic extremes. These experiences led to a profound love of the outdoors, a passion for communicating that to others and a desire to enable others’ enjoyment of it. Following a degree in Geography, time spent working on Operation Raleigh and time served with the Special Forces Reserve, Mark co-founded Across the Divide with Karen Hannaford, with the aim of providing innovative experiences that are challenging and safe. The challenges are also delivered with a keen dose of humour, which is always a great motivator! Mark’s experience, both on expeditions and in business, mean that ATD has the capability to develop bespoke programmes for employee development, as well as customer development events – which will stretch and cement capabilities and relationships.

Creating Across the Divide’s Corporate Social Responsibility arm in 2007 earned Mark the prestige of being awarded BT’s Essence of the Entrepreneur Award in 2008. He was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts to join his election as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in the early 1990s.

He is the founding director of World Extreme Medicine (formerly Expedition & Wilderness Medicine) which provides the highest level of medical training to medical professionals through courses established in the Lake District, northern Norway, Namibia, Costa Rica and the Indian Ocean. In 2012 he founded the WEM Conference series and a highly acclaimed event bringing together the world’s leaders in Remote Medicine hosted previously at the Royal Society of Medicine in London and Harvard University in Boston and currently homed in Edinburgh.