I am interested in how people live challenging circumstances on their own terms – in the explanations they give for why things are as they are and in the compromises they make with life and those around them.

My approach to research means living life as they do and has included sustained periods spent with doctors and nurses at war, Boat Race crews, a ragtag band rowing the Amazon, peace activists, and paedophile hunters.

Professional Experience

Mark’s unique fieldwork and teaching approach have fostered an eclectic portfolio of executive education clients, including Slaughter and May, Allen & Overy, Linklaters, White & Case, and various other law firms; Stonehage Fleming, McKinsey, KPMG, PWC, Ernst & Young and other professional service firms; organisations such as Sky, Ascential, OfCom, Lloyds-TSB, BT, Diageo, Moody’s, The Economist, and the NHS, and such NGOs as UNICEF, the British Academy, and the Church of England. He received training in mediation and negotiation at Harvard Law School (Program on Negotiation), is part of the University mediation team, and holds advanced degrees in management and economics, photojournalism and documentary photography, and biography and creative nonfiction. His research has featured widely in the press, including in The Economist, TIME magazine, The Financial Times, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Week, Der Spiegel, Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Evening Standard, The Wall Street Journal, The British Medical Journal (BMJ), The Lancet, and on the BBC’s Thinking Allowed, Thought for the Day, and World Service. His photographs have been published in The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and by the BBC News.

Relevant Research

• De Rond, M., Lok, J., & Marrison, A. (2022). To catch a predator: the lived experience of extreme practices. Academy of Management Journal, 65(3), 870–902. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2020.1492

• De Rond, M., Holeman, I., & Howard-Grenville, J. (2019). Sensemaking from the Body: An Enactive Ethnography of Rowing the Amazon. Academy of Management Journal, 62(6), 1961–1988. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2017.1417