John McGuigan
John has over 35 years of experience across Financial Services, Healthcare and TMT. He has worked internationally at ExCo level for global corporations, FTSE100 organisations and in the public sector. He has been recognised for his extensive knowledge of developing and delivering market leading customer experience working in partnership with brands including Apple, Google and TCS. John’s most recent role was Group Customer Director at Phoenix Group and as a member of the ExCo he was responsible for the development and delivery of an omni channel experience. John was part of the core team who sold Standard Life to Phoenix in 2018, and he was involved in a range of M&A activity whilst at Telefónica.
John assumes that people have the best intent and want to improve the area or areas they are responsible for. He believes leadership is about supporting an individual to perform at their best within the context of the purpose and values of the organisation. He has valued having mentoring support himself as he believes having someone in your corner with the sole purpose of helping you become a better leader is critical. John believes the role of the coach or mentor is to encourage the mentee to get to know themselves better, provide challenge and offer alternative viewpoints which in itself will lead to better leadership and followership and a better quality of life outside of work.
Having begun his career in the UK Civil Service in a range of roles including policy work in Whitehall, John moved into management consultancy helping organisations evolve their strategy and culture. He then spent a period as CEO of NHS24 in Scotland before joining Telefónica in 2007 as part of the team that launched the iPhone in the UK. John was then invited to be CEO of Telefónica Slovakia and then moved into the role of MD – Sales and Operations at Telefónica Germany.
In 2014 John moved back to the UK as Customer Director at Standard Life where he headed businesses in Germany and Ireland alongside the UK customer role. He was in the deal team who sold Standard Life Assurance to Phoenix Group, leading the due diligence on customer data, property and operations. On completion of the deal, John joined the ExCo at Phoenix Group as Group Customer Director. During his time at Phoenix he led the team responsible for the transfer of 3.4 million customers from heritage systems onto a new platform with TCS.
John is now Chair of Scottish Financial Enterprise, a Non-Executive for the Scottish Ambulance Service and at Scottish Friendly, an advisor to Fintech companies, as well as a Mentor at Merryck.
John is married to Sheena and for no obvious reason has collected three very noisy dachshunds. He enjoys playing golf, running and the gym. He values the time he spends with family and friends, particularly if it includes going to a nice restaurant.
