John Davison

CEO, KKR/Pillarstone,

John Davison CEO Pillarstone grew up in a British family owned SME manufacturing business and ran a part of it for a year before going to University. He started his career as a strategy consultant at Booz and McKinsey before working in Private Equity with The Carlyle Group, Warburg Pincus and Bridgepoint, including a period as a turnaround CEO.

He joined RBS in 2011 as Global Head of Strategic Investments, a member of the Management Team of RBS Restructuring and a member of the Investment Committee of Non-Core, where he worked closely with the Asset Protection Agency. When John joined RBS Restructuring it was responsible for a large portfolio of corporate, property and shipping NPLs globally and a portfolio of directly owned property and equity positions all of which totalled €100B and represented 25% of the RBS balance sheet. This was reduced to €5B by the time he left in 2015 and the reduction included many substantial recoveries on realisation across all asset classes and geographies through active asset management.

John has an MA from Cambridge University, an MBA from Harvard Business School (where he was awarded the Paul Revere Prize) and represented Great Britain in the Sydney Olympics.

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