John Howe

John is a Trustee at the Frederick Bonnart-Braunthal Trust, which aims to establish and maintain scholarships at universities in the United Kingdom for research into the nature of racial, religious and cultural intolerance with a view to finding a means to combat it.

After a civil service career in the MOD, ending as Deputy Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency, John became Vice Chairman of Thales UK, from which he retired in 2009, though he remains a member of the Thales UK Advisory Board.

Earlier, he held a wide variety of positions on both the management and policy sides of the MOD, including a spell in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s; secondment to the FCO as Counsellor in the UK Delegation to NATO in the early 1980s; founding Head of the Defence Arms Control Unit; a spell as Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary George Younger; and Personnel Director.

John was educated at Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford. Married to Angela, John has two daughters, both grown up.