Mark Waites was born in Leeds, England. There he got an education, and accent and a football team.

He is Joint Creative Director and a founding partner of Mother. He started his career in London where he worked for several agencies including BMP, Legas Delaney and O&M.

In ’92 he moved to New York and worked for a couple of agencies with a 6 month break in-between shops to ride a motorcycle from Alaska to the tip of South America.

Over 11 years ago Mark moved back to London to be one of four people who started Mother. Mother was voted ‘Agency of the Year’ In 2001 and 2002 and Mark and his creative partner Robert Saville have been voted ‘Creative Directors of the Year’ by Campaign magazine more than once. Mother opened offices in New York, December 2003 and Buenos Aires late 2005.

A short film he wrote and directed was accepted into over 60 film festivals around the World in 2003/4 and picked up ‘Best Short’ in six of them.

Mark also won an EMMY award for "Best National Public Service Campaign" for an HIV awareness TV campaign created for MTV North America.

He sits on the board of VCU Adcenter which might be called something modern like ‘Brandcenter’ by now

He lives in London