Alex Marshall was born in Barnet and spent his early life in Hertfordshire. He started his Police career with the Metropolitan Police Service in 1980, serving for 20 years mainly across South London. In 2000 he transferred to Cambridgeshire as an Area Commander. He joined the Thames Valley Police in 2004 as Assistant Chief Constable and was responsible for policing major events such as Royal Ascot and the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles in Windsor. He was promoted to Deputy Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police in May 2007. He was appointed as the Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary on 16th October 2008.
As Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary he oversaw four consecutive years of crime reduction, rolled out mobile data terminals to frontline officers and delivered around £40 million in savings. He facilitated close collaboration arrangements with Thames Valley Police which saw the formation of a Joint Operations Unit, and the sharing of services such as Public Order, Firearms and Roads Policing. He also introduced a shared Assistant Chief Constable post to oversee these services. Nationally he was the ACPO lead for Air Support and introduced the National Police Air Service. He was heavily involved nationally in setting a vision for the future of policing and improving the use of community disposals. In 2009 he was awarded the Queens Police Medal.
Mr Marshall, studied at Wolfson College and the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge and became a Cropwood Fellow in 1999. He was awarded a Masters Degree in Criminology at the University of Cambridge in 2006.
In October 2012, Alex was selected to become the first Chief Executive of the College of Policing, taking up this post on 4 February 2013.