Sir John Egan has enjoyed a long and highly distinguished business career. After studying petroleum engineering at Imperial College, he was employed by Shell in the Middle East. Following time at London Business School, he joined AC Delco, a General Motors company. He then moved to British Leyland where he helped to set up and ran Unipart, a uniquely successful operation within BL. Four years with Massey-Ferguson in Canada followed before Sir Michael Edwardes encouraged him back to Coventry to try and save Jaguar. Ten years later, he reluctantly sold the company to Ford but achieved a price of �1.6 billion ($2.5 billion). He was Chief Executive of British Airports Authority from 1990 until 1999 and headed up the construction industry task force, producing the Egan Report, Rethinking Construction, in 1998 and Accelerating Change in 2002. He served as President of the CBI from that date until 2004 when he became Chairman of Severn Trent. Among many other roles, he was Chairman of Inchcape plc, Chairman, and later President, of the London Tourist Board, President of the Institute of Management and is Chancellor of Coventry University. He was knighted in 1986.