John is the Convenor of the twice-yearly Gordon Cook Conversations that bring together small groups of tomorrow’s leaders, to develop scenarios of the future. Through his own company, 2025, he organises occasional seminars, designed to stimulate future thinking. He undertakes executive coaching assignments for senior managers and directors.

He is a Chairman of Grand Central Savings, and a Council Member of the Chest, Heart and Stroke Association Scotland, a leading medical research charity. He is a board member of Columba 1400, the pioneering international and community leadership centre at Staffin on the Isle of Skye. He is a trustee of the Crichton Foundation (Dumfries), a director of the International Resources and Recycling Institute (Dundee) and a trustee of the Frank Buttle Trust (London).

He spent his early career in the oil industry, working as a senior executive in the fields of general management, marketing, advertising, planning and public affairs for Shell UK Limited in both upstream and downstream sectors. Between 1979 and 1996 he was non-executive Chairman of CTF Training a large UK charity specialising in training-for-employment, and a trustee of the Scottish Business Achievement Awards Trust (SBAAT) from 1986 to 1992. From 1995 to 2002 he was a founder and the chairman of the Nobel Exhibition Trust, creators of the world’s first inventor centre, The Big Idea, at Irvine.

Between 1990 and 1998 (on secondment from Shell) he was chief executive of Scottish Business in the Community, whose purpose was to promote economic development, (through a network of local Enterprise Trusts), and corporate social responsibility. During this same period he was chairman of Young Enterprise Scotland, which teaches entrepreneurial skills to young people through ‘learning by doing’, and a director or trustee of the Scottish Ballet (1992-1997), the Edinburgh Quartet Trust (1993-1998) and Art in Partnership Scotland (1991-1995). He was a Governor of Stewart’s Melville College and The Mary Erskine School from 1995-1999.

In 1996 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for the City of Edinburgh. He is a Burgess of Guild of the City of Aberdeen, a member of the Edinburgh Merchants Company and an Honorary Fellow of The Institute of Contemporary Scotland.

Married to Sue, and with four grown-up children he now resides in Galloway in the South-West of Scotland.