Mark Venning's career started in the 1940s in rural Wiltshire where he lived with mother and piano. Early on he discovered the superb Victorian organs in local churches and he played for his first church service at the age of eight.

At Winchester College he was taught the piano and organ by Christopher Cowan, a great-great-grandpupil of Beethoven, and he built a six-stop organ in the school workshop. His subsequent musical studies included a spell in Cologne with Hans Klotz (as a result he speaks fluent German), and two years at the Royal College of Music, where he was taught by Harold Darke and Sydney Watson. In between, he read Greats (Ancient History and Philosophy) at Oxford.

After teaching music for a while he moved to Durham on April Fool's Day 1972 to join Harrison & Harrison. He arrived with his wife, Katherine, who now  works alongside him at H&H. They have four children. Mark has been managing director since 1975, and worked happily with Cuthbert Harrison until Cuthbert's death in 1991. From 1994 to 2000 he was President of the International Society of Organ Builders. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, and still plays in public from time to time.

Mark enjoys life amongst organ builders and organ pipes, and spends as much time as possible on the practical side.  Having reached the age of 65 he looks forward to sharing his responsibilities with David Hirst from September 2008. The plan is that after a gradual handover David will succeed Mark as Managing Director, and Mark will remain active as Chairman.

DAVID HIRST,  DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR

David Hirst, who is 44, will join H&H in September  2008. His musical career started in Chichester Cathedral, where he was a chorister under John Birch. Later he was organ scholar at Emmanuel College Cambridge, where he studied music and had organ lessons with Nicolas Kynaston. Between 1985 and 2002 he had a successful business career, working for major companies in Japan, the United States and London. He also gained the degree of Master of Business Administration in the United States.
In 2002 he returned to the musical world as Assistant Organist at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. He has studied the organ with Thomas Trotter and is now on the postgraduate course in organ performance at the Royal Academy of Music, where his organ professor is Lionel Rogg. The course finishes in the summer of 2008, when he will move to Durham.