 He was chairman of The National Theatre from 2010 to 2016.After being educated at Repton School and completing his degree at Cambridge University, John started working as a journalist, first at Reuters and then at the "Financial Times", where he edited the influential "Lex" column.From there he moved to Saatchi and Saatchi's US holding company, before co-founding Makinson Cowell, a specialist independent financial consultancy firm.