John was appointed as an independent non-executive director and became chairman of Standard Chartered PLC inJuly 2009. He is also senior independent director.
He is chairman of Experian Group Limited and Burberry Group PLC.
John joined GUS in 1970 where he held senior IT positions within the retail and home shopping divisions. In 1980 he co-founded CCN, a trading company formed by GUS that marketed information services to retailers and other lending organisations. CCN went on to become one of Europe's largest information services businesses and following the acquisition of other major information services in the US and Europe it became Experian and John became chief executive.
He was appointed to the board of GUS PLC in 1997 and became their group chief executive in January 2000. During his tenure the group concentrated on three major businesses - Home Retail Group, Experian and Burberry - and shareholder value more than trebled.
In 2002 John was appointed chairman of Burberry in advance of its successful flotation. GUS demerged its remaining businesses in 2004 and he became chairman of Experian.
John is also chairman of the board of governors of Nottingham Trent University, deputy lieutenant for the County of Nottinghamshire and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Kay Carberry
Appointed January 2005
Member of Investment Committee
Kay is the assistant general secretary of the TUC. She has served on a number of government advisory bodies on equality, education, training and employment and is currently a commissioner of the Equal Opportunities Commission. She is a trustee of the National Council for One Parent Families and of the People's History Museum and a member of the Franco-British Council.
Sir Peter Housden
Appointed May 2007
Sir Peter Housden is Permanent Secretary for the Scottish Government. Peter was previously Permanent secretary at the Department of Communities and Local Government, with responsibilities for housing, planning, local government, fire and civil resilience, regional policy, tackling disadvantage and social exclusion, community cohesion and equality and also permanent secretary at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Between 2001- 2005 Peter was director-general for schools for the Department for Education and Skills.
Gareth Jones
Appointed July 2003
Member of Audit Committee
Professor Gareth Jones is visiting professor of organisational behaviour at INSEAD and Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School. His key interests lie with organisational design, culture, leadership and change, about which he has published several books.
Dona Roche-Tarry
Appointed December 2006
Dona has been managing partner of CT Partners - a global search firm - since July 2008. She was previously director of Human Resources, UK Business Banking, at Barclays Bank and responsible for people strategy, reward, performance, training and development and governance.
Previously Dona was a senior partner at Heidrick & Struggles based in New York. During her tenure she made significant contributions to the firm as managing partner of the Communications Practice in North America, head of telecommunications in the UK and as managing director of the Stamford CT office.
Ed Smith
Appointed December 2006
Chair of the Audit Committee, member of Pensions Committee and the Remuneration and Nominations Committee
Ed has recently retired from a 30 - year career with PricewaterhouseCoopers where he was a Senior partner and Global COO and Strategy Chairman for the Assurance business as well as a member of its Global Leadership Team. He is a board member for the Higher Education Funding Council where he chairs the Leadership, Governance and Management Committee, Chairman of UK University Sport, Deputy Chairman of the Managing Partners Forum and a member of the Advisory Board of Opportunity Now.