Chief Executive
Jagex

Mark G

00.01 Hi my name is Mark G, I am the Chief Executive of Jagex Games Studios in Cambridge. My day to day duties are really just making sure the wheels are turning smoothly as possible, I think I’ve really described my role as a lubricant in the machine, more than a gear or anything like that. I’ve worked with great people in my life, but I’ve never worked with so many great people at one place in Jagex. Just being part of that is a real honour for me.

00.26 I grew up on a farm. My folks, my mum was a teacher but we had a farm as well so they had full time jobs but the farm had to run itself. So it involved being up at five in the morning, two half hours before school and coming back after school and doing another two, three hours of chores. It was pretty full on, but you know, think its, its quite wholesome at the same time.

00.49 I studied mechanical engineering in Pretoria. In order to pay for it effectively I needed to do three jobs. You know, I was fixing cars and stuff like that at the weekends, tractors, I was working in a steak house and I was tutoring at university at the same time. I ended up looking after the university’s IT, it was a blessing that I got paid for it. I’ve never looked back and that was kinda my fast track into IT if you were.

01.13 When I left, the first thing that occurred to me was, well, why don’t I set up my own IT company. I was very blessed to get a tender for a hospital system that afforded me the opportunity to pay off my wife’s studies, she’d been at studying law at the same university, and take a three month honeymoon, so we got married, extended honeymoon.

01.32 I got married very young, twenty one, and was like, well maybe its time for a family. So okay, where, given all the choices in the world where would we wanna have a family. As my wife’s from an English/Irish background, so England kinda seemed like the natural place on the map where it would be easy just to arrive, language wouldn’t be a problem. It is probably one of the toughest things I’ve had to do, it was terrifying. You’re leaving friends, family, everything you’ve known. The easiest option is just to take a return flight back and kinda settle with the life you know, but you persevere.

02.05 I was very again blessed to get an ecommerce director role at a company called Cirrus Global. A year into that I was appointed Chief Operating Officer. That was eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, so that was pretty extreme. It took my dads, my dad’s death to kind of call time on that, so, kind of all of a sudden got the reality check like you know, what’s it about. All those years back we kinda said this is a change of life for us, this is, we’ll have some kids, grow some roots, so almost immediately, well, a day, I handed my notice and said you know, not quite sure what I’ll do next but, it will be different, I’m going to spend more time with my family and everything else.

02.47 I was approached by a head-hunter who said, you know, there’s this great company called Jagex, really like you to come and meet them. I came to see Jagex, I met Andrew Gower, the founder. This is the amazing thing about Jagex, Andrew was looking to step down as CTO, so he could be more hands on and I thought wow, I love people who are just hands on, roll their sleeves up, lead by example. He was all of that, Jagex was all of that and I thought wow, this could be it. This is, this is an incredible role.

03.15 The biggest turning point in my life was probably when Alexander was born. I think that’s when, kinda the whole universal puzzle fits together. Its been deeply fulfilling, can start seeing, you know little personalities there and forming and a little human is giving you feedback and making you proud and things like that. And it’s life changing.

03.39 So when I’m not here I’m spending time with the family, sometimes tank driving for a bit of stress relief. I was fortunate enough a few years ago to buy two tanks from the MOD. And you know, kinda big one eighty rolls Royce engines multi fuel. I’ve taken it up to Tesco’s once, my wife threatened me with divorce, cos she said we live in this neighbourhood. It’s one thing if I know you’re eccentric but don’t let the neighbours know.