It’s the end of an era at the event security and stewarding contract Showsec; Mark Harding is retiring as Managing Director. He’s been MD since 2002. During his tenure, the company has delivered growth, and gone from what was once a family-owned business, to an internationally recognised company, the Leicester-based contractor says.
After a decade of part-time security and crowd management experience, he began permanent operational employment with the company in 1995. An advocate of industry regulation, he has promoted the work of the UK regulator the Security Industry Authority (SIA) serving on many working groups including that of an invited member of the SIA Strategic Forum. Also voluntarily he was chair of the trade body the United Kingdom Crowd Management Association (UKCMA) for ten years until 2019; Showsec remains a member.
Mark (pictured in 2014) also did work from the first days on the planning for the 2012 London Olympics, and chaired the group which reviewed the British Standard for stewarding and was behind the creation of the National Occupation Standards and qualifications for the sector. He was a speaker at the Security TWENTY 18 event at Nottingham in February 2018, on the aftermath of the Manchester Arena suicide bombing of May 2017, where Showsec was the crowd stewarding and event security contractor, and was featured in the April 2018 print issue of Professional Security Magazine.
Among the company’s larger and higher profile stewarding and security jobs over the years have been the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in summer 2002; and last May’s open-top bus parade around Manchester city centre by Manchester City FC on winning the 2021-22 Premier League title.
The company says it’ll make a further announcement on Monday about the new head.
