Key People

John Peace is Chairman of the Board. Initially an independent Non-Executive Director, he was appointed Chairman of Standard Chartered PLC on 2 July 2009.

He is Chairman of Experian plc and Burberry Group plc. John is also a member of the board of governors of Nottingham Trent University, Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Nottinghamshire, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Chairman of The Work Foundation.

John joined GUS in 1970 where he held senior IT positions within the retail and home shopping divisions. In 1980, he co-founded CCN, a trading company formed by GUS that marketed information services to retailers and other lending organisations. CCN went on to become one of Europe's largest information services businesses and, following the acquisition of other major information services in the US and Europe, it became Experian and John became Chief Executive.

John was appointed to the Board of GUS plc in 1997 and became their Group Chief Executive in January 2000. During his tenure the group concentrated on three major businesses: Home Retail Group, Experian and Burberry and shareholder value more than trebled.

In 2002 John was appointed Chairman of Burberry in advance of its successful flotation. GUS demerged its remaining businesses in 2006 and he became Chairman of Experian.