Governor
State of New Hampshire
Concord, New Hampshire
A business and community leader, John Lynch has dedicated his life to putting people first. As a businessman, he established a track record of turning around troubled companies. As the President and CEO of Knoll, Inc., he changed the way this national furniture manufacturer did business and transformed it from a company losing $50 million a year into one making a profit of nearly $240 million. Under his leadership, Knoll created new jobs and intitiated an annual bonus for factory workers, established a college scholarship program for their children, created retirement plans for employees who didn't have any, and gave workers stock in the company. Early in his career, as the Director of Admissions at the Harvard Business School, Lynch made ethics one of the criteria for admissions for the first time in the school's history. He has also served as the President of the Lynch Group, a business consulting firm in Manchester, New Hampshire.Hhe has been a member of the board of Citizens Bank of New Hampshire. John Lynch strongly believes that our public schools and public colleges and universities are the foundation of our democracy and the key to our economic prosperity. As chair of the University System Board of Trustees from 2001 to 2004, he worked to keep tuition increases to a minimum. He was first appointed to the Board of Trustees in 2000. Expanding access to affordable health care is a passion for John Lynch. A member of the board of Catholic Medical Center in Manchester from 1997 to 2003, he led the successful fight to stop a corporation from closing this community hospital. A community leader, he is past president of the UNH Alumni Association and is a member of the board of the Capital Center for the Arts. Working his way through college, John Lynch earned his undergraduate degree from the University of New Hampshire in 1974. He also holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. He and his wife of 27 years, Susan, live in Hopkinton with their three children, Jacqueline, Julia and Hayden, who attend local public schools.
