United States
John is the Chairman & Co-Founder of IVA Ventures IVA focuses on investments and advisory in established media and luxury companies as well as seed and early stage digital companies. He has led media companies in Europe, US and Canada ranging from less than $20M in revenues to more than $1.2B and from 100 employees to 10,000 employees. He is the founder and former CEO of Digital First Media, the then No. 2 newspaper company in the U.S, and co-founder and ex CEO of impreMedia, the then largest Hispanic news company in the US. He is currebtly the Chair of The Independent as well as Executive Chairman of BOAT International serving the superyacht industry and Executive Chair of Informa Prestige Monaco which includes, besides BOAT, the Monaco Yacht Show, Top Marques Monaco and Art Monte-Carlo. He is also a member of the Investment Advisory Committee of Pembroke VCT. He served as a director of The Guardian for six years and was Chair of theguardian.org which raises funds for investigative journalism for The Guardian and its editorial partners. A former board member of El Pais, and PRISA in Spain. He has more than $7 billion in transactions and financings under his belt. In 2009, he was awarded Publisher of the Year by Editor & Publisher and has been named a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young in New York City. A graduate of Ryerson University’s journalism program, where he has been named an Alumni of Distinction, and Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration’s Finance for Senior Executives program. He is an experienced director on the boards of both public and private companies in the US, UK, Europe and Canada. The New York Times profiled John here: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/business/media/paton-prepares-his-newspapers-for-a-world-without-print.html?pagewanted=all&referer= E-Content Magazine named him in the Top 15 of Digital Media Influencers here: http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/Fabulous-15-The-Top-Digital-Media-Influencers-82375.htm
Prestige is an exciting collection of Informa's luxury assets including the Monaco Yacht Show; BOAT International Media; Top Marques and Art Monte-Carlo.