Martin Sarkis Essayan is the great grandson of the founder Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian. He was born in 1959.

He has been a Trustee of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation since 20 July 2005 taking over responsibility for the UK branch and Armenian Communities Department from his father. He is also a Trustee of the St Sarkis Charity Trust set up by the founder to support two of his creations: the St Sarkis Church in London and the Gulbenkian Library in Jerusalem.

He was educated at Eton (1972-77), Cambridge University (Engineering at Emmanuel College 1978-81), and Harvard University (MBA 1986-88).

He worked for IBM as a Systems Engineer from 1981 to 1986 in London, England helping major clients develop and implement IT solutions.

On leaving Harvard Business School he joined The Boston Consulting Group where he worked for fifteen years (1988-2003), half of them as a partner. He specialised in Financial Services and worked with many of the leading Financial Institutions in the UK, Continental Europe and the US. He led or advised teams supporting some of the largest successful transformation programmes in European Financial Services.