Jon Walden

After graduating from the LSE, Jon spent three years with Deloittes acquiring a Chartered Accountancy qualification. He was the first of his intake to leave for the world of industry, joining Xerox Corporation where he spent a useful five years learning how finance could be applied in practical terms to the running of a large business. At 29 he joined Volvo, a company obsessed by the customer. At 32 he was appointed Finance Director but soon after moved into general management and became Deputy Chief Executive. His first CEO appointment came at the age of 37 when he moved to Lex Vehicle Leasing. Due to the recession of the early 90’s, the business had to be turned round. Success was rewarded with his first PLC appointment at 40. He subsequently became CEO of what was at the time the world’s largest car dealership group. Here he was less successful, eventually departing when the business was sold to set up his own consultancy business. This turned a healthy profit but Jon found the work unfulfilling, so he took the plunge back into corporate life returning as CEO of Lex and a main board director of RAC PLC, Lex’s parent, in 1999. Over the ten years of his tenure, the business trebled in scale, profits increased from £4m to £72m, and employee satisfaction moved from 55% to 85%. Jon also pioneered the use of Six Sigma to a B2B customer environment. Jon is now pursuing a portfolio career. He is the Chairman of HR Owen plc, the quoted luxury car retailer, and Chairman of epyx, a business owned by Hg Capital and management which operates an electronic trading platform. Jon is also a non-executive director of Randgold Resources plc, the FTSE-100 gold mining company. Jon was the Senior Independent Director at Morgan Sindall plc, a construction business, where he served as a director for nine years until May 2010. He is passionate about customer service and good leadership and wants to bring his experience of both to Merryck’s clients. Outside of work Jon has been happily married to Maryanne for 35 years and has two adult children. He is interested in most sports, reading and music, and travelling to France where he has a second home.