Mark Lichtenhein is the Chairman of the Sports Rights Owners Coalition (SROC), a forum of some 50 international and national sports bodies and competition organisers with a particular focus on rights issues. He has worked in the sports industry for over 20 years, when he started to pioneer the transition of golf and other sports into the digital era. A software engineer by education, Mark Lichtenhein previously held a number of positions in the European software industry with Siemens and the Cap Gemini Group before becoming the first Director of Business Development for the industry-led European Software Institute in Bilbao, Spain, co-funded by the European Commission.