John first cut his teeth in the world of Information Technology at University College London, where he achieved First-Class Honours in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. A keen musician in his spare time, John worked throughout his university career as a DJ and drummer.

After graduating, John’s first postgraduate role took him into the City, where he worked on software development for an options trading business. With the UK amid a recession at the time, this role was on a contractual basis and therefore short-lived.

After completion of his teacher training, John began his role at Nower Hill as a junior teacher and was the youngest member of the teaching staff at the institution at that time. He soon found himself having to grapple not only with the challenges of teaching, but also with restoring broken IT equipment. With 80 children undertaking the GCSE course in IT and only 12 working computers at the school, John became a teacher by day and a repair specialist by night, and eventually increased the number of working computers at the school to 26. Over a four-year spell as a Nower Hill teacher, John effectively became the head of the school’s IT department.

During his time at Nower Hill, the Harrow Council local authority were in the midst of expanding local high schools, and so the school was able to benefit from increased investment in its IT capabilities and celebrated the opening of a new IT technology suite kitted out with new computers for pupil and staff use.

After four successful years in teaching, the UK economy had stabilised and John’s father, who headed up the Techna business, was actively exploring the possibility of expanding the company.

Eager to get on board with a new family project, John left Nower Hill and began working for Techna as an Engineer and IT Manager. It soon became apparent that many of the technological components the company worked with were especially relevant to John’s university studies and experiences, and he soon began to shine for the company and take a more hands-on role in other areas of the business, including sales.

John’s years at the helm have seen the company go from strength to strength. The first major change he oversaw at the company involved a complete computerisation of the business, moving away from its more dated methods of using card index file systems to record and store data.

Techna's clients now range from small start-ups to large multinationals. John's leadership of the firm has brought about a string of new product launches which took Techna into the export market and opened up new client opportunities in nations such as Canada and Mexico in North America, and opened a gateway to the Far East market via Malaysia and Singapore.

In more recent years, John has kept Techna heavily involved with Innovate R&D projects, which have enabled the business to take major steps forward in its technological capability. Involvement in such projects has yielded the development of new company facilities such as laboratories, fully supplied with new equipment, and given way to an expansion of the company’s R&D facilities which has helped Techna keep ahead of the market. 

In 2015, Techna was awarded a UCL Enterprise Award for being the institution’s most successful knowledge transfer partnership of that year, as part of a scheme run by Innovate. This success allowed Techna to access a smart grant provided by Innovate later that same year.

Over a difficult 2020 which saw worldwide industry hit hard by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, John and Techna were determined to continue their successes. During the initial UK lockdown first called on March 23, Techna built and opened its first e-commerce website from scratch, which now stocks over 900 different products and opened up new trading opportunities.

Although a year of intermittent restrictions did come with challenges, Techna finished its financial year in September 2020 with four per cent growth. Over the fourth quarter of 2020, between October and December, the company’s order intake was up by 50 per cent compared to Q4 in 2019 thanks to its determination to remain at the forefront of innovation and continue trading.

As restrictions continue into 2021, Techna remains optimistic and continues to harbour hopes of expansion with John hoping to extend the business’ product range over 2021-2022 in collaboration with firms in the US. The company also hopes to further expand its facilities, particularly those dedicated to R&D, to ensure that physical capacity becomes as little a constraint as possible.