Having met Ann, now his wife, in a bar in Glasgow in summer 1990, he left The Netherlands and started working in sales in Manchester shortly after returning from his trip down under.

An opportunity arose for a graduate scheme job at W L Gore & Associates in Livingston near Edinburgh in 1994 and John was accepted to join the market leading GORE-TEX brand and moved to Glasgow.

A year later he married, and in the same year an opportunity came up to join the Inside Sales team working with sports clothing brands in Golf, Sailing and mountain sports.

This role allowed join to learn about sales, customer service, supply chain management and manufacturing.

When the Head of Trade Marketing decided to leave in Spring 1996 John stepped in and ran the UK Trade Marketing activities building close relationships with retail owners, Buying Directors and Managing Directors of all major key retail chains selling outdoor and mountain sports GORE-TEX clothing in the UK.

Then in 2005 John was asked to take over the Strategic Account Management for UK clothing brands providing Golf, Sailing and Casual clothing using GORE-TEX fabrics.

This role involved managing the licensing relationship at C-level and growing the revenue of Gore materials sold to those licensed brands. John was responsible for all aspects that influences the revenue growth including operations and supply, sales and marketing programmes.

Due to a reorganisation of the global sales structure within Gore John was offered a redundancy package in 2017 after just under 23 years of service.

His non compete clause meant he could enjoy a year of improving his golf handicap before entering the world of Franchising. This came due to an opportunity working with an old friend who had brought Driving Miss Daisy to the UK from New Zealand 4 years earlier.

Ann his wife decided to buy the first Scottish franchise with Driving Miss Daisy in 2018 and John joined as a Recruitment consultant the same year.

Through a friend John got introduced to The Franchising Centre in December 2021 and joined them in August 2022.

In October of that year John was introduced to Snowfox, the brand owner of YO! Sushi who were looking to franchise more than 500 trading supermarket based sushi kiosks in Tesco and Asda.

TFC took on the project and started marketing this unique franchise opportunity in June 2023 resulting in more than 70 franchisees buying more than 150 kiosk operating licenses in a year.

John is also part of a trial recruiting franchisees for a brand new USA based Care franchise which he does from the UK. This trial has already led to 1 franchisee recruited and a 2nd franchisee close to signing.

John’s key skills are project management, working as part of a team whilst being extremely focused on his own individual achievement of agreed objectives. His vast experience in operating at senior management level as well as his ability to think strategically becomes obvious quite soon after working with him. He loves to set and achieve goals and has exceptional relationship building and communication skills.

Outside of his working life he is a devoted family man, with a 25 year old son now living in Amsterdam and 19 year old daughter who will start university in September in Edinburgh.

His hobbies include Golf, Pickleball and going to the Gym as well as helping out now and again in his wife’s 3 vehicle Driving Miss Daisy franchise.