Our Director: Mark Williamson
Dr Mark Williamson is co-founder and Director of Action
for Happiness and has overall strategic and operational
responsibility for the whole organisation.
Mark has taken Action for Happiness from a concept on paper to a
mass participation movement with hundreds of thousands of members
and a wide range of activities. Mark has a long-standing interest
in happiness and well-being and is passionate about creating a more
balanced, collaborative society that focuses less on consumption
and material wealth and more on helping people and communities
thrive.
Since creating and launching Action for Happiness in 2011, Mark
has engaged with a vast range of organisations, projects and people
on the topics of happiness, wellbeing and resilience - including
leading academics, major multi-national corporations, public sector
organisations, policy makers, SMEs, schools, charities and
community organisations. He has led the development of all Action
for Happiness resources and activities and has spoken regularly on
related topics at events and conferences across the UK and around
the world.
Prior to Action for Happiness Mark had a diverse range of
experience across private and non-profit sectors, from start-ups
through to large multi-national companies. He was previously
Director of the Innovation unit at the Carbon Trust, non-executive
director of clean technology start-up Solar Press and founder of
online initiative What You Can Do. Previously, Mark spent nine
years as a management consultant at Accenture, leading a wide range
of projects relating to strategy, technology and change management.
Earlier in his career he also worked for Hewlett Packard Labs and
Orange. After more than a decade of corporate life, Mark decided to
change direction and is now using his energy and leadership skills
to help build a better society.
Mark has an MBA from IMD business school in Switzerland, where
he received the Presidents Award for outstanding achievement. He
also holds a PhD and first class honours degree in Electronics and
Communications from the University of Bristol. He is a member of
the Institute of Directors, a Sainsbury Management Fellow and a
Chartered Engineer.
He lives in Surrey with his wife and their three young children.
He loves cycling and football and is a long-suffering Aston Villa
fan. He's also passionate about music and enjoys playing guitar and
singing (some would say rather too enthusiastically) in his local
community choir.