John is a Founder, CEO, and Investor with 25 years of leadership experience scaling from start up to multi Billion IPO in both B2B and B2C companies across the Technology, Airline and AgriFood sectors. He has a proven track record in leadership, strategy development, building high performing global teams and has extensive operating experience in fast growing global corporations. He has lead and integrated multibillion M&A transactions and served on public & private boards. He is an investor with deep expertise across the Food & Agri Tech sector and is passionate about food, health and sustainability

John is Founder and CEO of SVG Ventures|THRIVE, an innovation and investment platform working with Fortune 500 corporations and global technology start ups to advance the future of Food & Agriculture. SVG|THRIVE is the leading investor and Agrifood accelerator in the world with over 50 investments in the past decade. He is Founder of the Forbes AgTech summit the leading global AgriFood summit which is a joint venture he created with Forbes media. He has partnered with the USDA on the National Innovation Imperative working with the US Secretary of Agriculture.

In his nine year term at Palm, Inc (Nasdaq: PALM) he held the position of Executive Vice President of Global Markets and under his leadership Palm’s worldwide smartphone business grew to over $3.5 Billion in revenue. In 2003, he played a lead role in the merger and integration of Palm and Handspring.

At Metacreations, (Nasdaq: MCRE), John was Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing & Operations where he built the International business and integrated Metatools (NASDAQ: Meta) and Fractal to become Metacreations. He also held senior management positions at Claris a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple computer , AT&T /Teradata and Digital Equipment (DEC).

John has served on both private and public boards such as Aer Lingus (FTSE: AERL) Ireland’s national airline as well as boards of various technology companies.  He has served on the US Secretary of State’s Northern Ireland Economic Working Committee in 2009 and he founded the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) in 2007.

John is a graduate of the Marketing Institute of Ireland, holds a post graduate diploma in accounting and finance and has completed executive management programs at both Stanford and Harvard Universities.