John Davison
Experience & Background
Davison is an experienced international CEO with a strong background in food, beverages, healthcare, and technology. Throughout his career, he has led major transformations and turnarounds across large multinationals, PE-backed companies, family businesses, and digital start-ups. Davison steered the recovery and expansion of leading Asian healthcare services company Zuellig Pharma, backed by Temasek, and more recently the carve-out, turnaround, and sale of ekaterra, Unilever’s tea division (now Lipton Teas & Infusions) to CVC. Following a stint with McKinsey in the USA and Europe, he spent his earlier career in international leadership roles at Danone, Royal Numico, and Diageo.
Davison currently chairs Greenfields, Indonesia’s leading fresh dairy company, backed by TPG, and acts as an advisor to Phillips Healthcare in Africa. He sits on the Harvard Business School Alumni Board, as well as the Advisory Board of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University.
With an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MA in Modern Languages from Pembroke College, Cambridge, Davison is passionate about education. British by birth, he speaks fluent French and German, with intermediate Italian and Spanish. In his spare time, he is an enthusiastic musician, tennis player, and mountaineer, currently splitting his time between London, Singapore, and the Canadian Rockies.
Expertise & Interests
Davison’s focus is on business transformation, turnarounds, M&A, and post-merger integration. He also brings extensive experience working across diverse cultures, especially in emerging markets, where he has spent much of his career.
Contributions to IMD
Davison has been working with the Singapore team since 2020 where he was a guest speaker at OWP. Now spending more time in Europe, he is a regular visitor to the Lausanne campus, contributing to various executive education programs as well as helping to develop the curriculum on leadership and transformation. He is also an active mentor.
