John Hill

John spent the first decade of his forty year career in manufacturing, starting as an apprentice and becoming a Chartered Production Engineer, specialising in polymers, composites and adhesives.

In the late 1980s, he moved into manufacturing research, training and consulting, joining a similar membership-based organisation to TWI called PERA (The Production Engineering Research Association). Over a 28 year career with PERA, he rose from Consultant to Section Leader, Director of Technology, CEO and finally Chair, representing the UK RTO sector on the Board of EARTO and becoming a Fellow of the Institute of Directors.

In 2016, he moved into Whitehall to better influence the Government’s industrial strategy, and learn first-hand how the machinery of government works. There, he spent time as a Director in the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (then BIS) and the Department for International Trade (DIT). More recently, he transferred into one of the devolved Mayoral Combined Authorities, to understand better how manufacturing innovation and skills are implemented locally. There, he performed a business turnaround of a former Local Enterprise Partnership, merged into the Combined Authority, transforming it from the poorest performing UK LEP to the highest, creating 20,000 jobs and establishing a University in Peterborough.