Henderson attended National Leathersellers College, London, in 1970-71 and returned to Scotland to join Andrew Muirhead & Son Ltd. Within four years he had been appointed managing director and in 1975 he was appointed to the board of Scottish Tanning Industries Ltd (the group’s former name). In 2000 he was appointed group managing director.
Henderson was in part responsible for the prosperity that the Scottish group of leather manufacturers have enjoyed over the past thirty years. Today, Scottish Leather Group are the largest leather manufacturing company in the UK and their tanneries have a wide spread of customers in the sutomotive, furniture, aviation, marine, footwear and leathergoods industries worldwide.
Henderson has been succeeded by Iain McFadyen who joined the group in 1983. In recent years, McFadyen has been managing director of both NCT Leather Ltd and Bridge of Weir Leather Company Ltd.
This change has prompted two senior appointments within Scottish Leather Group. Pat Kennedy becomes manufacturing director of Bridge of Weir having previously been operations director of Devro plc, the collagen casings manufacturer, and Dr Michael Rogers has been appointed group engineering manager.
Within the group a new company, SLG Technology Ltd has been created to provide systems, services and marketing of byproducts both internally and externally. The company will be headed by Gordon oss as managing director. Vincent Morris has been appointed IT director and Dr Warren Bowden as environment director.
Commenting on the changes, SLG’s group chairman, Jonathan Muirhead, said: ‘The group is fortunate in having had a strong leader in John Henderson for so many years. However, his legacy is a talented and highly capable team of experienced people headed by Iain McFadyen, who has a proven track record of managing tanneries highly successfully. I believe that we are well placed to cope with the difficult challenges that lie ahead.’
