John (Jack) Keenan CEO of Grand Cru Consulting delivered a Masterclass to an invited audience on “The Creation of Diageo: the merger of Grand Metropolitan PLC and Guinness PLC”
Jack is the founder and CEO of Grand Cru Consulting Ltd. He has been CEO of the business now known as Diageo PLC
and Chairman and CEO of Kraft Foods International. He is currently a director of National Angels LTD, a theatre production company. Jack has served as an executive director of Diageo and Moet Hennessy and as a non-executive on the boards of Marks & Spencer PLC, Tomkins PLC, The Body Shop International PLC and General Mills Inc. Jack is also Patron of the Centre for International Management and Chair of the Harry Hansen Charitable Trust. He graduated from Tufts University and has an MBA from Harvard. He has also published on Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility
Jack’s talk at the Business School centred on the basics of a Preclusive Growth Strategy which can lead to bold moves via mergers and acquisitions. He also touched on Economic Profit and resource allocation as well as Leadership and Team Building. His talk was very well received and sparked a lively debate among audience members.
We would like to thank Jack (pictured with Prof Chris Pitelis Head of the Business School, Dr Dimitrios Koufopoulos MBA Director and Dr Bidit Dey, MBA Deputy Director) for his time, great presentation and support of the Business School.