Oct 16, 2019
Hello, this is Chris Barrow introducing you to
October 2019's “Two Reds” podcast with my friend Ashley Latter and
I want to start with a bit of an apology to our guest.
You see, Ashley came back from an Invisalign course
recently and told me “I met this amazing dentist called Mark Hughes
- we need to get him on the podcast, the listeners will love his
story.”
So my apology is that I’ve known Mark for at least 15
years and have no excuse for not having mentioned him to Ashley
before - sorry Mark, you are such an obvious choice, I’m kicking
myself.
So here we have the engaging story of a young boy
raised in Derry, Northern Ireland during “The Troubles” and
learning to survive in a world full of danger from an early
age.
Mark shares with us his journey from there to Dublin,
to qualify as a dentist at the beautiful Trinity College and then
(as so many of his contemporaries did) travelling to London to
really learn dentistry by spending 3.5 years in the NHS
system.
From there, one would have expected a transition into
the private sector but Mark can (and does) surprise those around
him and his next adventure was an extended trip around the world,
taking in Latin America, New Zealand, Australia and South East Asia
- even, at some stages, getting a bit of practice in for his
clinical skills.
Eventually back in London, he bought a tired Covent
Garden practice in 1997 and, you might say, learned the pleasure
and pain of ownership.
But then came a life-changing moment when he was
offered the opportunity to move to a prestigious Harley Street
address in Marylebone and took the plunge.
What happened next was the evolution of both the
Harley Street Dental Studio and, latterly, multi-location Group -
one of the more famous high-end UK dental businesses of the early
21st Century.
At the moment, Mark is once more reinventing himself,
having moved out of the hustle of Central London into the
Buckinghamshire countryside and he has recently committed to
another 4,500 sq ft development - this time a joint venture with a
plastic surgeon to deliver an holistic range of health and beauty
services.
Never a dull moment and Mark is very generous in
sharing with us many of the “mountains, valleys and missiles” of
his journey.
I’ll warn you - this is one of the longest podcasts
Ashley and I have recorded - but we are confident that your time
will fly listening, as it did for us.