John began his career within Yell, then a part of BT, in 1980 as a member of the marketing team. He was appointed as Marketing and Sales Controller in 1987 and in 1992 took on additional responsibility as Managing Director of Yellow Pages Sales Ltd, a wholly-owned sales subsidiary. John was appointed as Managing Director of the Yellow Pages Group in 1994 and continued as CEO of the Yell Group on its sale by BT in 2001.

John is a graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast and has served as Chairman of the Directory Publishers’ Association, Chairman of the Jurors for the EFQM’s European Quality Awards and as a member of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Advertising.

John is a member of the Nomination Committee.

John Davis has been Chief Financial Officer of Yell Group since 2000. He previously held positions within Pearson plc, where he was latterly Group Finance Director of the FT Group, and Emap plc, which he joined in 1989 and where he was Director of Corporate Finance and Treasury between 1995 and 1997.

John is a Chartered Accountant, having qualified at PriceWaterhouse, and has a Masters in Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was appointed a non-executive director of Informa plc in October 2005.