John Smith was appointed CEO of Clough on 1 August 2007. John is a chartered mechanical engineer with a degree from Glasgow University and has almost 30 years of international oil and gas experience from bases in Norway, the United Kingdom and Australia. He worked for 20 years for various Brown and Root companies in upstream oil and gas engineering and construction and ran their businesses in Norway and then Australia. Following the Halliburton Dresser merger in 1998 John took operational responsibility for Halliburton Subsea and managed the strategic process, which led to the formation of Subsea 7. John was CEO of that business for the first two years and served on the board until June 2007. He served on the boards of five other listed companies, has run his own business, and is a past President of the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA).