Mark Bolland was Deputy Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales 1997-2002.
Bolland was born on 10 April 1966 in Toronto, and educated at the King's Manor School, Middlesbrough, and the University of York, where he received a BSc in chemistry.
He was a public affairs executive with Public Affairs International Ltd, Toronto, and then joined IBM (UK) Ltd as a Marketing Executive. From 1989 to 1991 he was Research Manager and Adviser to the Director-General, Advertising Standards Authority, where he was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the establishment of the European Advertising Standards Alliance, and then Executive Assistant to Lord McGregor, the Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission 1991-1992.
From 1992 to 1996 Bolland was the first Director of the Press Complaints Commission, where he successfully established the PCC as an effective self regulatory body and saw off a number of threats to press freedom arising from the two Calcutt inquiries into press intrusion.
He was appointed Assistant Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales in August 1996, and in 1997 became Deputy Private Secretary. There he was credited with the rehabilitation of Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles, and with the establishment of special media arrangements to safeguard the privacy of Princes William and Harry at school and University.[1] His role was recognised by the PR industry in 2001 when he was awarded the prestigious PR Week "Professional of the Year Award". He resigned in 2002, but continued as a public relations consultant to the Prince of Wales until the end of 2003.[2] In 2002, he formed his own PR consultancy, Mark Bolland and Associates.[3]
He has been a columnist on ES [Evening Standard] magazine as the "Restaurant Spy",[4] as well as contributing occasional articles for the Mail on Sunday, and book reviews for the British Journalism Review.[5] He has also appeared on Newsnight Review.[6]
In June 2007 he became a Vice President of the Journalists' Charity. In 2008 he was appointed a Trustee of The Helen Hamlyn Trust, and in 2010 of the primary school educational initiative "Open Futures".[7] He is also a Trustee of the Middlesbrough and Teesside Philanthropic Foundation.[8]
He entered a civil partnership with longtime partner Lord Black of Brentwood (Guy Black), former Press Secretary to Rt Hon Michael Howard MP and now Executive Director, Telegraph Media Group and a Conservative member of the House of Lords. The partnership was registered at Islington Town Hall on Saturday, 11 February 2006. Murdoch MacLennan, Chief Executive of the Telegraph Media Group, and Rebekah Brooks, then editor of The Sun, were witnesses.