Mark Bolland

Mark William Bolland (born 10 April 1966) is a British public relations executive. Bolland worked for the Advertising Standards Authority and the Press Complaints Commission before serving as Deputy Private Secretary to Charles, Prince of Wales, from 1997 to 2002.

During his time with Charles, Bolland was credited with rehabilitating the prince's public image and enhancing the public image of the relationship between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, who would become the prince's second wife. After leaving the Prince, Bolland established a public relations and communications firm, Mark Bolland & Associates, and has held several roles in the charitable and third sector.

Bolland was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of Arthur Bolland, who had emigrated from Middlesbrough in England, and his wife Joan. His parents later had a daughter and the family returned to England. Bolland was educated at the King's Manor School in Middlesbrough, and the University of York, where he received a BSc in chemistry.

After university Bolland worked as a public affairs executive with Public Affairs International in Toronto before joining IBM's UK branch as a marketing executive where he worked from 1987 to 1988.

Bolland then joined the Advertising Standards Authority and began a career in media regulation. Lord McGregor, then Chairman of the ASA, promoted Bolland to be Research Manager and Adviser to him and the Director-General  from 1989 to 1991. Bolland then followed Lord McGregor to the newly created Press Complaints Commission (PCC), serving as his executive assistant and then being promoted to Director of the PCC from 1992 to 1996. McGregor's successor at the PCC, Lord Wakeham, recommended to Charles, Prince of Wales, that Bolland should work as his adviser, and Bolland's partner, Guy Black, who had worked previously for Wakeham, subsequently succeeded him as director of the PCC.

Bolland was appointed Assistant Private Secretary to Charles, Prince of Wales in August 1996, and in 1997 became Deputy Private Secretary. He served in the role of Deputy Private Secretary to Charles, Prince of Wales until 2002. Bolland has been described as a 'key figure' in the rehabilitation of Charles following his negative public image after the death of his first wife, Diana, in 1997 and helping to create public acceptance for the relationship between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles which led to their marriage in 2005. The popularity rating of Charles increased from a low of 20 per cent following the death of Diana to 75 per cent during Bolland's tenure.

Bolland and the prince's Private Secretary, Stephen Lamport, helped devise a media strategy that enhanced the public image of Charles and Camilla's relationship. The pair orchestrated the media coverage of the prince's first photographed public appearance with Camilla at the Ritz Hotel in January 1999 (dubbed 'Operation Ritz'), and of Camilla's first meeting with the Queen in June 2000 at a private party at Highgrove House. A June 2000 article in The Times by Andrew Pierce said that the media coverage of the meeting between the Queen and Camilla had marked 'the culmination of three years work by Bolland and Lamport' who since the divorce of Charles and Diana had 'worked tirelessly ever since on the public rehabilitation of Prince Charles and Parker Bowles...In the past week Parker Bowles has lost the loaded word mistress. She is now referred to as companion or even partner'. The first report of the Highgrove meeting was published in The News of the World, then edited by Rebekah Brooks, a close friend of Bolland.

An October 1998 article in The Times called "The Prince's Circle" described Bolland as having been '...credited with "updating" the Prince's image' by encouraging Charles to meet the Spice Girls, Nelson Mandela, and Peter Mandelson but also said that he was blamed for the negative publicity that resulted from Penny Junor's biography of the prince, Charles: Victim or Villain?.