John Roberts is a Reader in Organizational Analysis at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University, where he has worked since 1991. He was formerly a Senior Research Fellow at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, the Centre for Business Strategy at London Business School, and the Department of Accounting and Finance at Manchester University. He took his first degree and doctorate at the Manchester School of Management. He has since undertaken both individual and group counseling training. At the Judge Business School he is a member of the organizational behavior subject group, and teaches both management development and corporate governance and ethics, mostly to graduate students on the MBA.

His current research is focused on the dynamics of board roles and relationships with projects on CEO succession, the Chairman / Chief Executive relationship, the work of the plc Chairman, and the role of the board in creating a high performance business. He conducted some of the background research for the Higgs review of the role and effectiveness of the non-executive director that informed the most recent revisions to the UK Combined Code. He has published extensively in this area both in academic journals and a variety of practitioner reports.