Tuesday 1st April 1980

John Egan was appointed Chairman of Jaguar Cars Ltd. He studied petroleum engineering at Imperial College London and subsequently from 1962 to 1966 worked for Shell in the Middle East. After further studies, this time at London Business School, he moved to AC Delco in 1968 and then British Leyland where he played a part in boosting the fortunes of its Unipart business. After a four-year spell as Corporate Parts Director of Massey Ferguson, Egan was appointed chairman of Jaguar Cars, turning round what had been a struggling business. A carmaker worth around £300m when he took over was sold ten years later to Ford for £1.6bn, at which time Egan moved to become chairman of BAA.

Egan then assumed a variety of non-executive business roles and served as president of the CBI from 2002 to 2004, when he took on the chairmanship of Midlands water company Severn Trent.