Desert warrior

“I thought the world revolved around governance,” says Mark Cross CMInstD tongue-in-cheek as he recounts his latest experience in the world of endurance racing.

In October, Cross not only competed in and conquered the 250km Atacama Crossing in Chile, but finished 10th in a field of 120 runners from 39 countries.

Cross and his fellow desert warriors traversed salt flats and massive sand dunes in the Atacama Desert, the oldest and driest desert in the world in the foothills of the Andes Mountains.

Multi-stage ultramarathons are a battle of survival and will power. There is a kind of craziness needed.

Cross, a professional director with more than 20 years of international experience in corporate finance and investment banking, describes the Chile experience as enjoyable and cathartic.

He was not only humbled by the forbidding environment, but by his rivals and the three “fascinating characters” he shared a tent with.

And also by the winner, ‘Bilbo Baggins’ (aka Rob Forbes), “who running-wise was on another planet”.

“Coincidentally or not, they were either current or ex-military and they had some fascinating stories to tell,” Cross says of his tent mates.

“We spent a lot of time together because after each stage you would be back in the camp early in the afternoon.

“One was a current British commando who had just rowed solo across the Atlantic. Another was a West Point graduate and lieutenant colonel in the US Army with a PhD in military strategy; and the other was a former British airborne soldier who had more recently spent time as a private contractor in the Middle East.

“And then there was me,” says Cross, laughing, “but no one was interested in any boardroom stories. “I thought the world revolved around governance, and here I was and no one was very interested. I did contribute with curiosity and questions though.”

‘Brutal beauty’

From his first experience of endurance racing in the 250km Marathon des Sables in Morocco in 2008, then the 250km Gobi Desert in 2016, the 320km Alps to Ocean Ultra and now the Atacama, Cross says there is a “brutal beauty” to such unforgiving and desolate terrains.

“The Atacama is the world’s most arid desert with humidity of about 4% so it is really dry and dusty, and has such a big landscape.

“It can be quite cathartic to live so simply for a week. All you have is a little pack and the dehydrated food in that pack to last the week. There is no technology, no nothing.”

It’s just you and the desert. But if you put your mind to it and put the training in, then that gives you a better experience, Cross says.

“The Atacama was more about – dare I say – enjoying it than struggling. It was not easy. There is a whole range of people – some at the front who are there to win it and some who are at the back to just complete it. They might walk a good portion of it.

“At the beginning of the week my aim was to finish top 10 so that pushed me. The competitiveness kicks in and drives you along. You always want to make sure the person behind you is not catching up, and you are trying to close in on the person up front.”

It is the physical and mental challenges that appeal to Cross in participating in these endurance events.

And by a tragic turn he found that doing these events is a great way to raise money for worthy causes.

“I was working in London at the time and a colleague’s young son had tragically drowned so they launched a trust in his name,” he says.

Cross was just about to tackle the Marathon des Sables and thought, “given the sad circumstances why waste a great opportunity to raise money for a good cause”.

“I raised about £25,000, That was the beauty of working in investment banking – you do something crazy and colleagues will dip into their pockets.”

Thanks to supportive friends and colleagues, the charity contributions have kept ticking over with Cross’ every kilometre. He raised $10,000 doing the Gobi race in 2016, $15,000 for the Alps 2 Ocean Ultra in 2019 and then over $23,000 for the Atacama Crossing.

Helping students 

The money for the Atacama Crossing goes to the Milford Foundation, a charitable organisation set up by Milford Asset Management. The funds raised will help fund university scholarships for students in need.

“Milford Asset Management contributes to the foundation and funds all of its costs so every dollar that comes in goes out as a dollar to the chosen charity partners,” Cross says.

“It’s bringing an active investment management perspective to philanthropy, involving extensive due diligence to select a small number of charities that fit in the foundation’s pillars of youth, education and the environment.”

The foundation has a board of trustees, with a couple of Milford appointees and independent trustees with expertise in philanthropy.

Cross retired as chair of Milford Asset Management in July, but took over as chair of Chorus in October and is also a director of Xero. He is a board member of the ACC, chairing its investment committee, and is a director of Virsae, a privately owned software company.

An active member of the IoD, Cross says you have to be nimble in a world experiencing volatility and unpredictability, and where setting strategy is critical and not a once-a-year event.

He says other issues directors will face are, in no particular order, attracting and retaining talent, managing the hybrid workplace effectively, cyber security and managing climate risk.

The customer is paramount and you must stay connected, he says. “The customer is at the heart of any strategy – don’t stray too far from that and you are going to be doing all right.”

As the dust settles on his Atacama adventure, the 55-year-old Cross would not rule out another ultramarathon.

“I would like to think it’s not my last, but my wife might like to think so.”