John Pugh
johnpugh@sympatico.ca
Office: 613.235.3879
Fax: 613.567.3879
John has enjoyed a diverse and very successful career in academia, high technology, business and more recently in the world of soccer. He is currently the CEO and Owner of the Ottawa Fury Soccer Club
Born in England, John graduated from the University of Wales with a first class degree in Computer Technology. He spent 5 years teaching computer science in Durham and Sheffield before accepting a position with Carleton University in Ottawa in 1979.
At Carleton, John was promoted to Full Professor and acted as Director of the School of Computer Science for eight of its formative years. A pioneer in the field of Object-Oriented Systems, John is co-author of five books, was the editor of an industry newsletter, and is an author of many columns, articles and research papers. He was a regular speaker at international industry conferences and served on numerous leading academic and industry committees.
John left the University to become President, CEO and co-founder of The Object People, Inc., an international provider of computing, e-commerce and Web solutions. Under his leadership, The Object People grew from a three-person operation to a multi-national company with offices in five countries, more than 120 employees, and a global customer base. John directed the company over a ten year period from start-up to acquisition.
After the acquisition, John took the position of Vice-President of Global Education for BEA Systems, Inc. At the time BEA was the world's leading application infrastructure software company with more than 3,000 employees and 15,000 customers around the world. His primary responsibility was the development of a worldwide education division for 3 client bases: BEA customers, employees and channel partners. During John's tenure, the BEA Education Division grew to 120 employees, tripled its annual revenue and trained 5,000 channel partners. He resigned from his position at BEA (now Oracle) in November 2001.
John played semi-professional soccer in the UK enjoying a successful career at the varsity (Swansea, Welsh and British Universities teams) and club levels (Swansea City, Llanelli, Durham City, Sheffield FC). He finished his playing career in Canada playing for the Ottawa Falcons.
In July 2002, he acquired the Ottawa Fury Soccer Club with two goals in mind. (1) To provide the highest levels of soccer for fans in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec to enjoy as spectators and (2) to provide the best possible development opportunities for talented young soccer players in our region to develop to their full potential and move on to play at varsity, professional and representative levels. He is currently a member of the USL W-League Executive Committee, the OSA Technical Committee and was a member of the Site Organizing Committee for the Ottawa portion of the 2007 FIFA U20 World Cup. He is currently involved in the bid to bring the 2014 and 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup events to Ottawa.
Recently, John joined the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) in partnership with Roger Greenberg, Bill Shenkman, John Ruddy and Jeff Hunt. The City of Ottawa and OSEG have together developed an innovative, dynamic solution for the transformation of Lansdowne Park. A world class 24,000 seat stadium designed for professional football and soccer is central to the development.
John has lived in the City of Ottawa for more than 30 years. His wife, Christine, is a teacher of the hearing impaired and they have a son, Gareth, and a daughter, Chloe, who have recently graduated from McGill and Western universities respectively.
