Access Accountancy appoints Mark Pavlides as new chair

Social mobility charity  Access Accountancy has confirmed Mark Pavlides, ICAEW interim managing director, operations, as its new chair.

Pavlides replaces Sharron Gunn who left Access Accountancy at the end of November 2024.

He is an experienced senior leader with more than 25 years of operational and commercial expertise across multiple industries, including finance, professional services, transport and technology.

He also has held senior leadership roles at organisations such as ACCA, Govia Thameslink Railway, William Hill, AIG and British Airways, leading large-scale transformation programmes, improving customer experience and driving commercial growth.

Additionally, Pavlides has extensive international experience, having lived and worked in Australia and across Asia, where he led regional operations and strategic initiatives in “highly regulated and complex markets”.

Pavlides said: “Access Accountancy plays a vital role in ensuring that talented young people, regardless of their background, have a fair chance to build a career in accountancy. There’s still a lot of work to do in improving social mobility in the profession, and I’m looking
forward to working with the trustees, signatories, and wider stakeholders to drive meaningful progress. The more we open doors, the stronger and more diverse our profession will become.

“On behalf of the trustees, I’d like to thank Sharron Gunn for all her input into Access Accountancy over the past year and a half.”