John Goodman

John graduated from Liverpool University in Modern History and Politics. He started working with Ibis, an international book marketing company in London, Sydney and New York, the last two years running their NY representative office.

In 1989 he joined Ogilvy & Mather Direct where his accounts included Royal Mail, Compaq, Microsoft, Shell, SCF, British Rail, KJS, Guinness and BT. He was appointed to the agency board in 1991.

In May 1993 he moved to Prague to run the new O&M agency in the Czech Republic. He was there for four years, during which the agency quadrupled in billings and grew from 10 to 80 staff.

From 1997 to 2003, he was President of OgilvyOne Asia/Pacific. During this time, the network opened offices in Japan, China and Korea, and saw revenues grow by a multiple of five in the region. OgilvyOne was the winner of the first ever Media Award for best regional agency network in 2003, and also dominated the Asian creative scene, winning 22 out of 30 awards at the Asian DMA. He also served on the OgilvyOne worldwide board.

Following a long-time personal interest, John became a Muslim in 1999, in Guinea, West Africa.

In 2004 he became CEO of O&M India and South Asia. During this period, O&M was Indian Agency of the Year 3 times, voted overwhelmingly by clients and peers as the agency they most want to work with.

In June 2006 he moved to Tokyo as President of O&M Japan. In April of 2009, he relocated again, this time to become President of OgilvyAction in Asia. He was also responsible for the opening of Ogilvy’s newest office in Myanmar, and the establishment in 2010 of Ogilvy Noor, the world’s first specialist practice in Islamic Branding. In addition to his working career, from 2009 to 2014 John took a distance-learning MA in Islamic Studies from the University of Wales at Lampeter.

In August 2016, John retired from these positions in order to return to an academic calling. He took a Ph. D with Exeter University, specialising in Muslim minorities in Southeast Asia, receiving his doctorate in 2020. He has also been teaching a course in Creative Communications at Nanjing University in China.

Away from work and studies, his three great loves are his 22-year-old daughter, Liverpool FC, and Reggae music.