A lawyer by training and a Fortune 500 executive by experience, John’s initiatives are motivated by his passion to see political, spiritual and cultural life renewed in America. For more than three decades, he has built institutions in business and finance, launched movements in politics, faith, and culture, and developed projects across the creative and sports world, all animated by a simple conviction: everyone matters, and everyone counts — and we should build institutions and a culture that embody that principle.
John began his career at Ropes & Gray and Morgan Stanley before joining Affiliated Managers Group (NYSE: AMG), where he ultimately served as Vice Chairman and helped scale the firm to a $15 billion enterprise managing $700 billion in assets. Today, he is Chairman of EJF Investments Limited (LSE:EJFI), a London Stock Exchange–listed investment vehicle for U.S. banking and insurance assets; co-founder of Mangrove Management Partners, the nation’s largest vascular surgery enterprise (backed by Blackstone and Wells Fargo, among other leading health care investors); and in development of an innovative new investment management initiative.
Over the years, John has also helped oversee a variety of for-profit enterprises in a Board or advisory capacity, including the AMG Mutual Funds, various EJF Funds, Lattice Strategies, and Mangrove.
Alongside his business career, over the decades John has developed new projects and initiatives to renew America’s spiritual and cultural foundations. In the early 1990’s he helped found Veritas Forum at Harvard, which is now on hundreds of campuses around the world. Over the years, he partnered with Christianity Today to develop the First Principles Project, along with the Seedbed and Love Alliances, and was at one time an owner of the world’s largest multi-faith websites, Patheos and then Beliefnet/Patheos.
In 2019, John launched American Awakening, a national spiritual awakening initiative combining books, concerts and live performances, podcasts, docuseries and convenings.
In that same American Awakening spirit, John is today working with Stand Together and the creators of the He Gets Us campaign to develop JesusDoes, an initiative oriented to the spiritual renewal of Christian life in America.
John continues to work to create an American politics that is aligned with our nation’s founding principles, and the “everyone matters — and everyone counts” conviction. In 2016 he founded Better for America, followed by Uniting America in 2017, and in 2018 he ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts.
In 2022 he helped facilitate a merger and re-launch of the Forward Party with Andrew Yang and others, serving today as Chair of coalition and candidate recruitment efforts.
Over the years, John has helped oversee a variety of political/and policy enterprises in a Board or advisory capacity, including the Pioneer Institute, Committee to Fix the Debt, American Enterprise Institute, and the Forward Party.
Perhaps John’s deepest conviction — there is nothing better than music, movies, and sports!
Over the years, John has helped produce a broad range of films, from Mitt with Emmy-winning director Greg Whiteley, which premiered at Sundance and was Netflix’s first original documentary; to This is the Year with Selena Gomez, and Lorenzo and David Henrie; to More Art Upstairs, in concert with Jody Hasset Sanchez; to Wildcat, working with Ethan Hawke.
John also produced and hosted the Better Together concert during the 2020 pandemic, featuring For King and Country, Jonathan McReynolds, Crowder, and LeCrae.
Today, John is finalizing Return of the Prodigal Son with Greg Whiteley (Cheer, Last Chance U), to be released in 2026, and is a partner in the legendary Austin music venue Antone’s.
On the sports scene, John is working with wonderful partners to bring a Major League Baseball franchise to the great city of Austin, Texas; and across the pond in the UK, with the management of Burnley Football Club (a Premier League team) in its efforts to build their European soccer footprint.
From his earliest days, leaving his small-town Connecticut roots at 17 to travel alone on America’s highways and byways, John has been in search of the best of this great country and its people. John graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, earning dual degrees from the Wharton School and the School of Arts and Sciences (graduating magna cum laude), and earned his Juris doctorate at Harvard Law School (cum laude).
Along the path, there have been too many key influences to name, but among the most significant are: pledging Alpha Phi Alpha, the brotherhood of Martin Luther King, Jr. along with so many other great Americans; clerking and teaching with Presidential Medal of Freedom winners A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. and Robert Coles; and in more recent years, working with great spiritual leaders from around the world, most notably Hurmon Hamilton, Ray Hammond, Steve Macchia, and Kate Jones.
After spending their lifetimes in the northeast, John and his wife Jean today split their time between Vermont, San Diego, and home base of Austin, Texas; as with all men and women of a certain age, their greatest joys are spending time with their five very grown children, four spouses/significant others, and three (soon to be five!) grandchildren.