John Browne joined BP as a university apprentice, and became group treasurer and chief executive of BP Finance International. He held senior roles during the BP/Standard and BP/Amoco mergers and was appointed group chief executive in 1995. He left in 2007.
Lord Browne is the chairman of BeyondNetZero, a climate growth equity venture established as a companion fund of General Atlantic. He is also chairman of the Stanhope Capital Advisory Council; Windward; Courtauld Institute of Art; Francis Crick Institute; and the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. Lord Browne sits on the boards of IHS Markit and SparkCognition, and is a member of the advisory boards of Edelman, Schillings, Afiniti, and Kayrros. He is a trustee of the Royal Opera House and of the Holocaust Educational Trust. Lord Browne is also a fellow and past president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of the Royal Society and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.
He is the co-chair of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology. Lord Browne was the UK government’s lead non-executive board member. In 1999, the Royal Academy of Engineering awarded him the Prince Philip Medal for his outstanding contribution to engineering.
Lord Browne is the author of five books. His most recent is Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilisation, published in May 2019.
He holds degrees in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge and an MS in business from Stanford University.
