Profiling UK Public Leaders: Interview with Mark Eccleston (AIM:VAL)

Profiling UK Public Leaders, Episode 5

That is the word Mark Eccleston uses for his first year as chief executive of ValiRx. Mark Eccleston has been involved with ValiRx in various forms since 2008, took over as CEO in August 2024, and says the role was not what he had planned for himself.

Indecision is the expensive mistake

The best advice Mark has received is not to hesitate. His view is that decision paralysis costs time, and on the horizons a small listed company operates to, time is money.

Decisions may turn out to be wrong, he says, but making none is worse. His own critique of his first months in the role is that he took too long on some of the early calls, and the difference he is describing is weeks rather than years.

News flow is not the same as RNS

Mark is direct about the limits of regulatory announcements. By the time an RNS has been through the nomad, he says, the interesting parts have been sanitised out. The rationale behind a deal, and how it fits the wider strategy, has to be carried by something else.

That includes video, commentary, and simply being visible. He makes the point that a conference is not a jolly. It is dozens of meetings across a few days, plus the informal conversations that get you a formal meeting later, and none of it can be replicated remotely. Showing shareholders that work is happening is part of the communication, not separate from it.

Bringing the voice in-house

His rationale for internalising investor communications is that the best people to explain the company are the people doing the work.

What is less common is how far he has pushed that beyond himself. His scientists now present to customers and collaborators, appear in company content, and post on LinkedIn, with him deliberately staying quiet in the room. He describes it as a confidence exercise: the more they do it, the easier it gets.

What he would do differently on the raise

ValiRx had raised in the last 12 months, and Eccleston is candid about the process. Every statement in the deck had to be lawyer-approved, and staying on script was non-negotiable. His view is that raising money should be difficult, and that companies which find it easy tend to get complacent about it.

His takeaways for anyone approaching a raise:

• Be transparent about the state of the business. His narrative was explicitly a transition rather than a happy story, and he thinks that is easier to defend
• Be specific about where the money goes and what it buys
• Own the investor relationship directly, so you are not dependent on someone else for the information