Who Is Mark Lee?
Mark Lee FCA is an accountancy focused Speaker, Mentor, Influencer, Author and Debunker.
– A quality conference speaker both virtually and on stage – Mark is one of only a small subset of UK speakers judged worthy of being accepted as a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association.
– Highly rated – You can read what others say about Mark’s performance as a professional speaker here >>>He also has 120+ recommendations on Linkedin
– Member of The Magic Circle – often said, in jest, to be the most interesting thing about Mark! He tends to include the odd magic trick in his talks so as to highlight key points.
– The most networked accountant in the UK – A qualified chartered accountant with an extensive network and a positive reputation for consistently providing relevant, independent and commercial advice.
– Consistently highly ranked as an accountancy influencer – He is well connected both offline and online and is regularly identified as an authority on the use of social media by accountants. In September 2017 Sage identified Mark as one of the top 100 global business influencers.
Who Is Mark Lee?
Mark Lee is a professional speaker, author and mentor.
– A quality conference speaker both virtually and on stage – Mark is one of only a small subset of UK speakers judged worthy of being accepted as a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association.
– Highly rated – You can read what others say about Mark’s performance as a professional speaker here >>>
– Treasurer of The Magic Circle – often said, in jest, to be the most interesting thing about Mark! He tends to include the odd magic trick in his talks so as to highlight key points.
– The most networked accountant in the UK – with an extensive network and a positive reputation for consistently providing relevant, independent and commercial advice.
– Consistently highly ranked as an accountancy influencer – He is well connected both offline and online and is regularly identified as an authority on the use of social media by accountants. In September 2017 Sage identified Mark as one of the top 100 global business influencers.
Engaging a Speaker online or on stage – Why Mark Lee?
Mark is regularly described as an entertaining, engaging and inspirational presenter who evidently has a lasting impact, serious intent and a great sense of humour.
By profession Mark is a Chartered Accountant but he has never fitted the archetypal stereotype. His profile and reputation within the accountancy profession have resulted in him being invited to speak at dozens of prestigious conferences and seminars for accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, other professionals and consultants.
Mark’s experience as a presenter dates back to his teenage years when he first started to build his confidence in front of the most challenging of audiences. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1982 but has long stood out from many with a similar background. Headhunted twice he was a partner in two top firms of accountants, including BDO and he has been a regular writer for the professional press since 1987. Thus he has all the credibility, integrity and independence you and your audience require to relate to his anecdotes, experiences, insights and advice.
Over the years Mark has worked with, written for and addressed audiences of thousands of accountants. More recently he has also been applauded for his online presentations and the way he still engages the audience.
His career spans more than 30 years, during which time he stood out as a top accountant, a frequent financial commentator and one of only a handful of accountancy qualified magicians. He is now treasurer of the world’s most exclusive magic society, The Magic Circle. He is also deputy treasurer of Norwood, a top 150 charity, a member of the ICAEW’s member and commercial board and is regularly asked to judge industry awards.
For some years Mark was a self styled ‘Immediate Futurist’ addressing audiences of accountants about what the future will hold. But he didn’t predict the pandemic and now focuses on the other topics long associated with his name. This is a result of his forward thinking, hype free approach to business development, marketing, social media and Linkedin.
Mark always shares simple analogies and acronyms to help highlight many of his key messages. Unlike other speakers, whose talks may be enjoyable but are also forgettable, Mark ensures that his audiences can recall his advice and so will remember how they want to be reMARKable, referred and recommended long into the future.
For many years Mark has been a popular go-to guy for comment and insights regarding the accountancy profession as well as a regular judge for accountancy related awards ceremonies.
In recent years Mark has developed a framework containing 7 key principles that are relevant for accountants who want to STAND OUT from the pack. The principles are key to generating more work as well as to helping accountants ensure they are remembered, referred and recommended (for the right things!)
There are many elements underlying the 7 key principles and Mark draws on these when mentoring clients, when speaking at events, and when writing his blog and articles for the professional press. In addition to more than 700 items on his own blog, he has had many more than 200 practice focused articles published and these have been viewed well over ONE MILLION times.
If you are looking for an energetic, engaging and entertaining speaker – I would certainly recommend Mark Lee. Mark facilitated and presented at our European Conference and aside from delivering on the day, he took the time and care to understand our organisation, our delegates and tailored his delivery accordingly.
Kreston was delighted that Mark was able to speak at the Kreston EMEA Conference in Rome – The presentation was lively and interactive and I’ve no doubt that Kreston partners will confidently STAND OUT when bidding for more work. 90% of the delegates scored Mark – good to excellent, which is outstanding
Mark Lee strode onto the stage at our ICPA Conference with a huge smile, a few props and a welter of help and advice to impart to the delegates.
At the end the smiles were on the faces of the delegates, myself included, because they had just enjoyed a thought provoking, intelligent and entertaining seminar from a man frankly at the top of his game.
I watched as the audience laughed whilst making copious notes and at no time were they talked down to or indeed sold to.
Accountancy at the small practice level can be a solitary profession and accountants are notoriously shy and introverted yet Mark was able to get them involved and vocal which could well be his greatest achievement.
I’m glad I asked Mark to appear and I’m glad Mark agreed to appear and much more importantly the delegates were glad that Mark came.
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Current Roles & Credibility Profile
Always open to ways in which he can both provide and generate value by reference to his experience, insights, networks and connections, Mark currently:
- facilitates The Inner Circle for Accountants,
- presents keynote talks at accountancy conferences, away days and exhibitions
- speaks at events, in-house and workshops on business development techniques and related topics such as networking, social media and linkedin,
- mentors a select number of sole practitioner accountants each year,
- chairs the Tax Advice Network.
- writes regularly for his own and third party blogs, ebooks and for AccountingWeb where he was Consultant Practice Editor from 2009- 2015.
Voluntary work
Mark has been Deputy Treasurer of Norwood (a top 150 children and family services charity) since 1999, Was Treasurer of The Magic Circle from Feb 2014 – September 2021 and, since 2016 has been a member of the ICAEW’s Members and Commercial Board (having previously spent two years chairing the ICAEW’s Ethics Advisory Committee).
Recognition
May 2022 – Presented his latest talk at Accountex, making him one of the only speakers invited to address this annual conference in London every year since the event started
April 2022 – Invited to again be a judge for the 2022 Business Book Awards and for the Accounting Excellence Awards 2022
April 2021 – Invited to be a judge for the 2021 Business Book Awards
Feb 2020 – Returned to South Africa to make 2 further presentations for SAICA in Cape Town and in Johannesburg.
May 2019 – Presented his latest talk about the future at Accountex
April 2019 – Invited to again be a judge at the 2019 British Accountancy Awards
September 2018 – Engaged as an accountancy influencer by Global Infosys – top outsourcing company celebrating their 20th anniversary year
May 2018 – Invited to present his newest talk about the future for accountants at a series of conferences in South Africa (for SAICA)
April 2018 – Invited to again be a judge at the 2018 British Accountancy Awards
March 2018 – Spoke at 4 conferences around South Arica for SAICA.
March 2018 – Invited to again be a judge at the Practice Excellence Awards
November 2017 – Invited to attend the QuickBooks Connect conference in San Jose as the only VIP guest accountancy influencer from the UK.
September 2017 – Sage identified Mark as one of the top 100 global business influencers
May 2017 – Mark presented the closing keynote talk at the end of the Accountex conference – this being the 6th consecutive time he was invited to speak here.
April 2017 – Invited to again be a judge at the 2017 British Accountancy Awards
February 2017 – Invited to become a Non-Exec Director with onkho
October 2016 – Invited to formalise relationship with ICPA and to become a regular contributor to Accounting Practice magazine
October 2016 – Penultimate speaker on the main stage at the Professional Speaking Association’s Annual conference.
September 2016 – Invited to become a regular blogger for the AAT Comment website
May 2016 – Mark presented 5 talks at Accountex this year and one of these immediately led to him being invited to be a judge at the 2016 British Accountancy Awards.
January 2016 – Two new weekly rankings of online influencers were published at the start of 2016 and Mark was consistently among the top 5 on both lists: Speakers’ Power 100, and Providers & Suppliers to UK Financial Advisers Power 100
December 2015 – Mark was identified by ICAEW as one of the top 3 ‘most influential’ chartered accountants online. #ICAEWROAR
January 2015 – Mark was voted, by readers of economia magazine, the second most influential blogger and tweeter in the area of finance and accountancy. At the time a popular social media ranking system (klout) gave him a score of 78 (out of 100). Only celebrities tended to have scores above 80
Summer 2014 – Mark is proud to have been a judge for two major awards events in the Autumn (The British Accountancy Awards and the Practice Excellence Awards).
May 2014 – Mark’s keynote presentation to 100+ delegates at the inaugural Legalex exhibition in London was one of the most well attended out of the dozens of available talks over a 2 day period.
January 2014 – Mark was ranked by Economia readers and klout as one of the most influential bloggers and tweeters in the area of finance and accountancy.
January 2013 – Mark’s blog for Accountants was identified as one of the top 30 accounting and finance blogs of 2012.
March 2012 – Sally Percy, whilst editor of Accountancy Magazine wrote that Mark is “probably the most socially networked accountant in the UK” and “also probably this country’s leading authority on social networking for accountants.”
January 2011 – Mark was first described by Accountancy Age as “the most ‘networked’ accountant in the UK“.
Mark has over 8,000 followers on twitter. This is more than ten times as many as the number he follows. Which means that many of his followers are likely to be interested in his content and are not there as a function of his own following habits. (Some tweeters follow thousands of people to encourage them to follow back whether or not there is any mutual interest or connection).
Mark’s use of twitter was a key reason for his high klout score (78/100). Klout claimed to be an independent measure of one’s influence on social media. Only celebrities tended to have scores above 80.
Since the demise of klout in 2018, Mark has been continued to be consistently included in the Accounting Top 100 worldwide list of accountancy influencers, curated by Avalara using Rise.global technology.
Mark’s full career profile is set out on his Linkedin profile along with over 120 ‘recommendations’ from those with whom he has worked. He has also amassed many hundreds of endorsements on Linkedin where he has in excess of 12,500 followers despite neither seeking nor accepting random connection requests.
Networks
The Sole Practice Club – is an exclusive peer-led club where Mark facilitates a number of groups to help sole-practitioner accountants around the UK to achieve greater success – on their own terms.
The Tax Advice Network, of which Mark is Chairman, was established in 2007 and is now the UK’s highest ranked lead generation website for tax advisers and accountants.
Speaking Clients include:
Broadcasts
When Mark was in practice as an accountant he was a sought after commentator, speaker and broadcaster and appeared on:
BBC Breakfast, SKY Business, London Tonight, Newsnight, Moneybox live, Working Lunch, AccountancyAgeTV, Radio London
Published by
From 2009 – 2015 Mark wrote over 200 in his role as consultant practice editor for AccountingWeb. By the end of 2015 his articles on this site alone had notched up well over ONE MILLION views.
Mark has also been commissioned to write for, contributed to or been quoted in the following:
AAT Comment, ACCA, Accountancy, AccountancyAge, Accounting Practice, AccountingWeb, Career Accountant, Daily Telegraph, Economia, The Guardian, ICAEW, International Accountant, LexisNexis Tolley, New Model Adviser, PracticeWeb, Property week, Sage business blog, Sunday Times, Taxation, Tax Adviser.
Contact Mark on mark@bookmarklee.co.uk , phone 07769 692 890 or book a call to discuss your requirements for engaging Mark for your event as a guest or keynote speaker.
