John Ward - CEO of Livingston FC and CEO of Spring Group

John Ward grew up in ‘quite a big family’ ‘on a council estate in Boghall’ and ‘didn’t have much money’ ‘and when you went to school you were kind of invisible’. He also describes himself back then as ‘really shy and went to school with a pair of NHS glasses with a bit of Sellotape holding them together in the middle, so it doesn’t make you very attractive to girls!’.

In his 3rd year at school, John realised he needed to do something and decided to take a trip to his career adviser and says’ it was almost as if the adviser’s role was to tell him what he couldn’t be’.

Needless to say, John didn’t take the advice or lack of and moved into employment and developed exponentially into senior management.

Moving forward John has built and sold his own businesses, mentored many businesses voluntarily with Scottish Enterprise, helped on the children’s panel in Livingston for 13 years, and is currently the CEO of Livingston FC and CEO of the Spring Group.

Out with business, music has played a large part within John’s life playing in a punk bank from a young age and has ‘always loved musicians that just want to be a musician, they don’t care about becoming famous, they just love getting out singing and playing’. John says he ‘likes the balance of having some creative skills and applying some of that creative stuff to business thinking in order to come up with solutions and solve problems’.

John’s advice to pass on to the next generation ‘no matter what you’re doing surround yourself with people you like and find as much joy in life as you can’.

Listen to find out more of Johns amazing life story