Mark has held various engineering leadership roles within industry, Formula One, academia and the public sector.
In over a decade in F1 he ran both Jaguar/Red Bull and Williams race engineering teams.
Mark is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a Visiting Professor of both Surrey and Ulster Universities, where in academia he held the inaugural Sir George Edwards Chair in Aerospace Engineering, at the University of Surrey. As CTO of the UK’s Innovation Agency, Innovate UK, Mark ran both the Strategy and Impact and the Centres and Networks Governance Directorates, that included oversight of the UK’s extensive Catapult Network. He was also Chief Executive of Wave Power Ltd, Chief Operations Officer for Artemis Technologies Ltd and Belfast Digital Innovation Commissioner.
From December 2023 till August 2025 Mark held various positions at KAUST including Special Projects Director and Associate Vice President, Technologies and Special Projects. Previously, Mark was Head of R&D at the UK’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS), leading on a variety of airspace projects including one of the UK’s largest funded AI projects, called BlueBird, aimed at delivering the world’s first AI system to work with air traffic controllers and control a section of airspace in live trials.
In September 2025 Mark was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of ANGOKA a cyber security company headquartered out of Belfast, dedicated to safeguarding the future of an increasingly connected world.
In March 2026, the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering was delighted to welcome Professor Mark Gillan as Honorary Professor of Practice. Mark will bring his extensive experience to support the School’s ambitions to maximise the School’s impact on the economy and society through leading education and research, and build a global reputation across our research themes in topics such as Transport and Engineering Design.
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Updated 10/3/26