John Longworth was appointed Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce in September 2011. Over the course of his career, John has done business on every continent and has had Executive Board positions at Asda Group Ltd and Asda Financial Services Ltd and the Operating Board of Tesco Stores Ltd and the CWS Ltd.

In 2009 he embarked on a Portfolio career and co-founded and became Chairman of a science, IT and professional services business, SVA Ltd. A gazelle business, which John guided to a successful exit as the business was sold in 2015. John has also held a number of company non-executive director positions including at the Co-operative Group Food Ltd and Nichols plc, where he also sits on the Board audit committee.

John has always contributed to public life. In 2009 he was asked by the then health czar to join the Board of Barts and the London Healthcare Trust to improve economic efficiency and help solve the PFI debt. He has also been an NED on a Healthcare Trust and has served as both a Health and Safety Commissioner, including as Chairman of the HSE audit committee, and as a Competition Commission Panel Member, undertaking market investigations and merger inquiries.

Involvement with Trade Bodies includes the Board of the British Retail Consortium, as economic spokesman for the Confederation of British Industry and Chairman of its Distributive Trades Panel and as Chairman of the Paris based, CIES International Product Standards and Trade Body. He was also Chairman of the IGD and BRC Technical Committees. All representative of a long career associated with trade and international standards.

John is a regular contributor to broadcast, print and on-line media and has regular engagement with government and politicians in Westminster and Brussels over the last thirty years.

In his spare time he has been a Director of the Charity P3, cycled across Rajastan for the charity Magic Bus, climbed mountains in Borneo and Sri Lanka. His interests include history, opera, theatre, music and cycling. His Twitter says he is “married to an athlete and hates exercise”.

Originally trained as a scientist, John has a Bachelor of Science honours degree, a Master of Science degree by research and was awarded an honorary PhD in Business Studies by the private, BPP University, in London. He is also a Chartered Company Secretary.