JB Rae-Smith

President

JB Rae-Smith

JB (John Bruce) Rae-Smith is a member of the John Swire & Sons Executive Committee. In addition to this responsibility, he is Chairman of the Group’s food storage and distribution business in the United States, Chairman of the offshore energy services business, a Board Director/Audit Committee Chairman of the deep sea/bulk shipping businesses and a Director of the publicly listed Papua New Guinea based business.

JB graduated from Cambridge University with a Degree in Engineering in 1985 and joined the Swire Group management training programme. He has lived in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the United States, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

The majority of his career has been with the Swire Group’s marine interests. In 2002 he was appointed Managing Director of Swire Pacific Offshore and in 2005 was appointed Executive Director of the Marine Services Division. The variety of roles have included general/trade management, shipping agency, land side logistics and stevedoring. In 2009 he was also appointed Executive Director of the Trading & Industrial Division with responsibility for the Group’s retail and industrial business. In 2013 he was appointed to the main board of the Hong Kong listed company, Swire Pacific Ltd. In 2016 JB returned to the United Kingdom to take up the position of CEO Swire Oilfield Services and Chairman of United States Cold Storage.

In addition to these responsibilities his external appointments have included Member of the Hong Kong Ports Advisory Board, Director of The Standard P&I Club, Chairman of The Standard P&I Club (Asia), Director of the Singapore Environmental Council, Chairman of Lloyds Asia Shipowners Committee and Deputy Chairman of the Hong Kong Ship Owners’ Association.

He was also a trustee of the Mission to Seafarers (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.

JB speaks French, is conversant in Mandarin Chinese and to a lesser degree Japanese and Spanish.