John

Name
John

Position

Non-Executive Director / Board Advisor / Mentor

Location

Scotland

Big Business Experience

Wesco Aircraft

Haas Group International

Small Business Experience

Spring Group

Livingston Football Club

Summary

John is a highly accomplished, commercially focused and widely respected Business Executive with extensive leadership experience and a proven track record of success delivering operational performance improvement, profit and customer retention within the aerospace, defence, logistics and professional football arenas.

John has a hands-on, strategic and creative problem solving leadership style; with the ability to focus on “Value Add” and Best Practice detail and distill complex challenges into tangible, quantifiable execution strategies which consistently deliver to the business objectives.

A highly credible, motivational and dynamic leader of teams and people; John offers a unique  set of skills and experience to organisations looking for a balanced mix of business leadership credentials, supply chain & logistics expertise, aerospace & defence industry insight and revenue, margin and market share growth capability.

Qualifications

  • Higher National Diploma in Business Studies
  • REACH Training
  • AS9120 Site lead and auditor
  • ISO9001 Site lead and auditor
  • BRC Site lead and auditor

Key Areas of Expertise

  • Business Turnaround/Growth
  • Quality & Value Add Solutions
  • Mentoring and linking contacts
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Sales and Customer Service
  • Contract Negotiation
  • Chemical Management / REACH / ITAR
  • Project Management
  • Procurement
  • Supply Chain / Logistics
  • Business Acquisition / Disposal
  • Financial P&L Management
  • People Development
  • Value Add / Lean / Kanban / JIT
  • COVID Compliance and management (Football and Distribution sectors)

Experience

Spring Group

Taken what was a loss making family firm to year on year profits since buyout in 2014. John have driven new customer engagement and business growth.

Project managed enhancements to property portfolio to ensure full tenancy of the groups commercial assets.

Negotiatied buy out from RBS Global Restructuring Group maximising value through identifying miselling of hedge product by the bank.

Livingston Football Club

John was asked to get involved as the club was in financial difficulties and had just been relegated.  He was able to reduce the debt and attract new shareholder investment. The club went on to achieve back to back promotions to the Premier League and are now a very stable business.

John was also able to involve the West Lothian Youth Foundation in securing grants from Resilient Scotland in order to put down a community pitch. They now have over 1000 young people using the facilities every week and it has become a real part of the Livingston community.

Implemented Covid point of use testing at the club to allow return to football. They are the only professional football club in the UK that are doing this.

Wesco Aircraft – Haas Group

Spearheaded the execution of a business turnaround strategy to streamline the businesses acquired under the Haas brand into one UK legal entity, establish controls and processes, and deliver profitable growth. From a loss making business turning over £50m, it made profit for the first time in FY2013

Acted as a key member of the due diligence team for the acquisition process which resulted in the Haas business being acquired by Wesco Aircraft in February 2014 for $550m. The turnaround in the UK business and the increase in the sales pipeline was a significant contributing factor to the acquisition.

Personally led the negotiation activities to retain and win key accounts including GE, Spirit Malaysia, Selex, BAE Systems, Qioptiq, UTAS and British Airways.

Engineered a business critical margin improvement to support the business disposal strategy. Delivered through establishing a management team focused on the communication and implementation of the business vision, the reinforcement of several Best Practice initiatives, and the fostering of a culture of cross-departmental collaboration.