Mark Cowley
About Me
A commercially astute IT leader with extensive experience driving enterprise infrastructure transformation across multiple industries, including transport, financial services, logistics, and manufacturing. Skilled at leading large technical teams, managing multimillion-pound budgets, and delivering resilient, cost-effective solutions across cloud, data centre, and security landscapes. Recognised for spearheading high-profile recovery programmes, executing cloud-first strategies, and partnering with C-level executives to align infrastructure with business growth. Promoted rapidly throughout career for strong technical expertise, decisive leadership, and the ability to turn underperforming systems into stable, secure, and future-ready environments.
Work & Experience
SSP Limited 12/05/2022 - 04/30/2025
Head of Infrastructure
Took ownership of a failing infrastructure landscape, stabilising legacy systems and replacing critical hardware/services to re-store reliability; recognised with the internal SSP Star Award for service delivery and disaster recovery leadership. Directed five technical teams (Networks, Operations, NOC, Applications, Security) comprising 30+ engineers and team leads, embedding regular scrums, 1:1s, and succession planning to strengthen performance and ensure leadership continuity. Executed a full cloud-first strategy, lifting and shifting two data centres into Azure and AWS, managing compliance, resilience, and phased cutover with zero major service outages. Delivered £700K+ cost savings in one year by consolidating Microsoft licensing, renegotiating vendor terms, and reclaiming oversubscription fees, feeding efficiency gains back into infrastructure projects. Modernised the virtual environment through VMware optimisation, consolidation, and rightsizing, reducing operating costs and improving performance across the enterprise stack. Oversaw migration of the Citrix Gateway (2,000+ users) from physical to virtual, ensuring business continuity and improved scalability while cutting maintenance overheads. Partnered directly with C-suite executives, sitting on CAB and providing strategic recommendations on infrastructure, risk, and capacity planning to influence business-wide decisions. Actively led recovery planning following a ransomware attack, redesigning SSP’s security landscape, conducting vulnerability assessments, and embedding proactive monitoring to futureproof the estate. Controlled multimillion-pound OPEX and CAPEX budgets, applying strict governance while continuously identifying opportunities to reduce costs and increase ROI.
Portfolio
