John Robert Greenwood (4 June 1950 – 4 May 2008) was a British businessman and catering executive. He was chief executive of the

Roadchef Roadchef is a company which operates 21 motorway service areas in the United Kingdom. It is the third-largest motorway service area operator in the country, behind Moto and Welcome Break and followed by Extra. History Roadchef was founded in J ...

chain of motorway service stations from 2001 to 2004. Born in

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, char ...

in 1950 Greenwood attended

The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School Haberdashers' Boys' School (also known as Haberdashers', Habs, or Habs Boys), until September 2021 known as Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, is a public school for pupils age 4 to 18 in Elstree, Hertfordshire, England. The school is a mem ...

, he trained to be an accountant passing his exams on his third attempt. In 1975 he joined

Balfour Beatty Balfour Beatty plc () is an international infrastructure group based in the United Kingdom with capabilities in construction services, support services and infrastructure investments. A constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, Balfour Beatty works ac ...

, the engineering and construction group, and four years he later moved to South Africa with his wife. He returned to Britain in 1982. In 1986 he joined

Compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with ...

, the global catering giant. Within three years he had made managing director of the healthcare division and built up its hospital portfolio to fifteen

hospitals A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

and three

nursing homes A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of elderly or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as skilled nursing facility (SNF) or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms have slightly different meanings to in ...

. When the business was sold he moved to Compass's food service operations. In 1998 he made head of Compass Contract Catering in Britain, Ireland and South Africa. He left in 2000 and joined RoadChef. Greenwood embarked on a £30 million improvement of facilities, overhauled the business's management, culture, food and hygiene standards, and revived staff morale. He built the first toll-road service station,

Norton Canes Norton Canes is an industrial village, civil parish and ward of Cannock Chase District, in Staffordshire, England. It is situated out of the centre of Cannock. At the 2001 census it had a population of 6,394, and an area of of which 86% is gre ...

.First M6 Toll road services open

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

Greenwood also forged alliances with high street brands, notably

Spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...

, and his decision to introduce

Costa Coffee Costa Coffee is a British coffeehouse chain with headquarters in Dunstable, England. Costa Coffee was founded in London in 1971 by Sergio Costa as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. ...

outlets to all RoadChef service areas. He stepped down from RoadChef in 2004 after suffering from

motor neuron disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

. He had been set to become the first Briton to receive a diaphragm

pacemaker An artificial cardiac pacemaker (or artificial pacemaker, so as not to be confused with the natural cardiac pacemaker) or pacemaker is a medical device that generates electrical impulses delivered by electrodes to the chambers of the heart eith ...

, but he became too weak for the operation to go ahead. Greenwood died on 4 May 2008.

References

External links

The Times – Obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenwood, John 1950 births 2008 deaths 20th-century English businesspeople English chief executives People educated at Haberdashers' Boys' School People from Bromley