Mark Simmonds joined the British Ports Association in 2016 and leads on policy matters and engagement with Government. He is also the main liaison for media and political engagement.

Before joining the BPA he spent five years working for a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons as a senior researcher and speechwriter, focusing on business and technology policy. Prior to that he worked as Business and Systems Analyst at the Dreyfus Corporation, part of the Bank of New York Mellon in the USA and then for the UK Government as a policy advisor .