Mark Venn

Mark Venn is CEO and Managing Director of Clearlife Limited (www.clearlifeltd.com), and President of ClearLife's US affiliate, ClearLife Inc. ClearLife was founded by Mark in November 2007. It supplies trade processing, evaluation and risk analysis services to participants in the life settlements and premium finance markets. These services are provided through ClearLife's data management network, ClariNet, which allows investors in life settlements and synthetic longevity risk to interact in a secure manner with external service providers and other market participants. Prior to founding ClearLife, Mark established in 2005 Mizuho International plc's Asset Finance Group, a principal investment team formed to focus on the life settlements market. Mark recruited and managed a team of six front office professionals and worked with Mizuho's support teams to build a dedicated legal, information technology and operations infrastructure for life settlements. Through this process, Mark gained invaluable experience in designing and developing business procedures, information technology and risk management systems, tailored to the specific requirements of longevity and mortality risk. He also initiated and maintained relationships with key service providers and counterparties in the life settlements market. Over two years, Mark grew Mizuho's life settlements portfolio to over US$1.2 billion in face amount. While at Mizuho, Mark also founded the Institutional Life Markets Association (ILMA), which has become the leading trade association for institutional participants in the life settlements and premium finance markets. Mark joined Mizuho in 2000 with two colleagues to co-found Mizuho's Structured Credit Products Group, which completed US$3 billion in synthetic US high yield CDOs. From 1993, Mark worked for Credit Suisse First Boston and Credit Suisse Financial Products and was based in Hong Kong, London, New York and Tokyo over this period, specialising latterly in credit derivatives and synthetic CDOs. Mark holds a master's degree in law from Cambridge University and qualified as a barrister in 1990.