John Timpson
John Timpson was educated at Oundle and Nottingham University.
The Timpson family business was taken over in 1973, but 10 years later John led a £42m management buyout. In 1987 he sold the shoe shops and concentrated on building the shoe repairing and key cutting business, which has diversified into engraving, watch repairs, dry cleaning and photo processing.
Timpson now has over 1300 branches nationwide with a turnover of £195m and profits of over £15m. It is a private business wholly owned by John Timpson and his family. Timpson is recognised for its innovative work helping ex-offenders – it is the UK’s most active employer of people from prison.
Mr Timpson has been married to his wife Alex for 47 years and they live in Cheshire. They have five children Victoria (46), James (43), Edward (41), together with Oliver (39) and Henry (27).
Mr & Mrs Timpson were foster carers for 31 years during which time they fostered 87 children.
In 2000 he wrote ‘Dear James,’ which passes on to his son the lessons learned in 25 years as a Chief Executive. He describes his business philosophy in ‘How to Ride a Giraffe’ and ‘Upside Down Management’, and his latest book ‘Ask John’ was published in 2014.
He has a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph.
In 2004 he was awarded the CBE in the Birthday Honours List for Services to the Retail Sector.
