Tim Corke spent his career building payment infrastructure that worked seamlessly behind the scenes. His final act exposed a different kind of infrastructure failure—one that costs lives every day.
The chief operating officer of Token.io, a London-based account-to-account payment provider, died last week from catastrophic head injuries after what his sister described as 'a simple stumble that could have happened to anyone'. He was 49, a father of five, and by all accounts the sort of operational leader who made things run smoothly. But it's what happened after his death that should prompt uncomfortable conversations in boardrooms, homes, and HR departments across the country.
Corke's organs—heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, and liver—saved six lives in operations performed last Friday. What made this possible wasn't just his presence on the organ donor register, which millions of Britons have signed. His family knew exactly what he wanted.
The registration gap that kills
According to NHS Blood and Transplant figures, approximately 1,400 deceased organ donors provided transplants in the UK during 2023-24, with a further 1,100 living donors contributing kidneys or liver segments. Those numbers represent a stark reality: despite roughly 27 million people on the NHS Organ Donor Register, actual donations remain desperately scarce.
The medical circumstances matter, certainly. Most deaths occur in ways that render organs unsuitable for transplant—they must typically come from brain-dead patients whose hearts are still beating, or following cardiac death under tightly controlled conditions. That's a narrow window.
But Nicki Martin, Corke's sister and founder of workplace productivity firm Buzzio, identified the bigger bottleneck in a candid social media post following her brother's death. Donations drop by half again because families don't know what their relatives actually wanted. Registration means nothing if next of kin override the decision during trauma.
"Carrying a card is not enough," Martin wrote. "The final decision lies with the next of kin. The decision and process of organ donation at an already traumatic time causes many loved ones to say 'no'."
This is where the structural problem becomes clear. England moved to an opt-out system in 2020, meaning adults are presumed to consent unless they've actively registered an objection. Wales adopted the same approach in 2015, Scotland in 2021. Yet families can still refuse. They do, frequently, even when the deceased was on the register.
Why business leaders should care
The payments industry lost someone who colleagues described as embodying 'competence, compassion, and character'. Token.io CEO Todd Cylde called Corke 'an exceptional leader, colleague, and friend'. Jess Gerrow, the company's VP of marketing, noted how he 'modelled what leading from the front looks like'—quick to roll up his sleeves, champion others, and discuss his family or 'many animals' with equal enthusiasm.
Corke joined Token.io in 2020 after stints at eMerit, Monitise, and Bottomline Technologies. Token.io operates in the unsexy but essential world of payment infrastructure, providing the rails that allow money to move directly between bank accounts without card networks as intermediaries. It's the sort of business that requires meticulous operational leadership—exactly what colleagues say Corke provided.
What's interesting here is that workplace culture could actually address the donation gap Martin identified. Companies routinely facilitate conversations about pensions, life insurance, and emergency contacts. They could just as easily normalise discussions about organ donation wishes. Not as a box-ticking HR exercise, but as part of the operational reality that people die, and what happens next shouldn't depend on families making impossible decisions without information.
Paul Rodgers, chairman of vendor management firm Vendorcom, noted experiencing Corke's 'energy, insight, positivity, objectivity, warmth, quiet inspiration, encouragement and pragmatism' over 15 years. Those qualities built systems and teams. The same systematic thinking could save lives after death.
The timing and what comes next
Corke's children lost their father on 13 February—Valentine's Day weekend, and the same day his stepson was born. It's the third birthday on that date in the family. Martin mentioned losing their mother to a brain tumour two years ago. The collision of grief and new life, of endings and beginnings, is almost too heavy to process.
But operational problems demand operational solutions, not just sympathy. The NHS continues working to increase donation rates, but cultural change happens in families and workplaces long before someone ends up in intensive care. Martin's willingness to detail why most potential donations fail—medical circumstances, family uncertainty, next-of-kin refusal—provides a blueprint for intervention.
Token.io has encouraged staff and the wider business community to consider registration and, crucially, to have those conversations with family members. The payment infrastructure they build depends on redundancy and clear processes. Organ donation needs the same rigour.
Corke's colleagues remember someone who created a culture of 'empathy, kindness, professionalism and irreverent fun'. Matt Jackson, another Token.io colleague, noted how that culture held the company together through the traumatic week following the accident. Six families who received organs now have their own version of that gift—not just biological tissue, but more time with people they love.
The question for everyone else is whether registration without conversation is enough, or whether that's just another infrastructure failure waiting to happen when it matters most.
