West Midland: New Mayor of Walsall is parishioner at St Mary’s

Mayor Longhi with wife Andrea and Frs Salvatore Musella and Fr Justin Karakadu

Marco Longhi has just become the new Mayor of Walsall. Mayor Longhi is a parishioner of one of the most beautiful and historic parishes in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, St Mary’s the Mount in Walsall. As well as fulfilling his mayoral duties, Marco is also a member of the parish finance committee and the Property Manager for the parish.

Marco has represented the Pelsall Ward in Walsall since 1999 having moved to the town permanently in 1994. He has served on most Council committees including Cabinet for a number of years – but in recent years he has focussed his work on his real passion, Health & Social Care, chairing the Council’s Scrutiny committee. Marco has also served on two NHS trusts, an acute provider and a mental health provider, as non-executive director for several years.

Originally born in Walsall, Marco is son to Josephine Clarke, from Walsall, and Antonio Longhi from Rome, Italy. While still a baby the family moved to Rome where Marco attended Italian schools including a secondary school specialising in training aircraft pilots, following which Marco temporarily moved back to Walsall (1986) ahead of the family and lived with his grandparents, Ena & Wilf Clarke (Mayor of Walsall 1978). Wilf was a devout Catholic and supported the diocese in many ways: he built St Patrick’s and was instrumental in supporting the school over many years.

Marco then left for Manchester to read Civil Engineering graduating in 1990 after which he left the UK again to work overseas in Brazil for four years in oil exploration, where he met his wife-to-be, Andrea. Returning to the UK for a full time MBA from Warwick Business School (1994), Marco then joined an American company as Managing Director for a further four years with oversight of UK and Irish operations. Marco then set up his own specialist construction company building petrol filling stations across the UK – a venture that lasted a further five years.

Marco became very interested in national and local politics during the late 1990’s and became involved in Health care after a number of illnesses affected his close family.

Married to Andrea since 1995, he has two daughters, Monica and Daniela who have both attended St Mary’s the Mount RC primary school and then Queen Mary’s Grammar School and St Francis of Assisi RC secondary schools respectively.

Marco’s charity for the year will be WPH, a small Walsall charity that supports adolescent mental health counselling services.