John Rutherford
Associate Director General
Invest Hong Kong
John joined Invest Hong Kong in October 2002 as Associate Director-General with specific responsibility for attracting and retaining foreign direct investment in the following priority sectors:
Invest Hong Kong is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government department dedicated to attracting and retaining foreign direct investment in Hong Kong. It provides free information, advice and support services, helping foreign and Mainland investors to gain full advantage of the city’s ever-expanding business potential.
He has a wealth of experience in the field of Foreign Direct Investment, having previously worked for the British Government’s inward investment agency, Invest·UK for eight years. From 1994-98 he headed that organisation’s US west coast operation, based in Los Angeles, and was involved in several investments in UK by US corporations, particularly from the Silicon Valley region. From 1998-2002 he ran the Asia Pacific regional operation of Invest·UK. In this role he supported and coordinated the activities of the agency’s overseas operations in the region, and over four years he supervised a major expansion of Invest·UK’s presence. This included setting up a structure to attract inward investment from Mainland China, the first such initiative by a western country. These efforts helped produce a record number of Asian companies locating an operation in UK in 2001/02.
The period at Invest·UK was part of John’s role as a career diplomat with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). As well as the US and Hong Kong, John has also had overseas postings to Kenya, Saudi Arabia and Poland, the latter - from 1990-94 - promoting British investment and exports.
In December 2002 he was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his work in attracting foreign direct investment to the United Kingdom.