John Leighfield

John P. Leighfield CBE (born 1938) is a British IT industry businessman and was previously chairman of RM plc from 1993 until 2011.

Currently John Leighfield is a Director of Getmapping, a UK supplier of aerial photography, mapping products and data hosting solutions. He is also Chairman of Governors of the WMG Academy Trust (which operates two University technical colleges).

John Leighfield was born in Oxford, England, and was a pupil at Magdalen College School. He then read Greats at Exeter College, Oxford. He has an MA from Oxford, Honorary Doctorates from the University of Central England in Birmingham (DUniv), from De Montfort University (DTech), from Wolverhampton University (DTech) and from the University of Warwick (DLL). He is a Fellow of the RSA, RGS, CMI, IET, and BCS.

Leighfield has pursued a career in IT, initially in the 1960s with the Ford Motor Company where he did pioneering work on computer systems in finance and manufacturing, Plessey (where he was Head of Management Services) and British Leyland (from the early 1970s). In 1987, he led an employee buy out of Istel Ltd, which he had established as a subsidiary of British Leyland. In 1989, the company was subsequently taken over by AT&T. He was the Executive Chairman of AT&T Istel until April 1993.

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