John Wells is a notable figure in management and business education. He earned his BA and MA in Physics from Oxford, his MBA in 1979 with distinction as a Baker Scholar from the Harvard Business School (HBS), and his DBA in 1984 from HBS. 

Wells has held several significant positions throughout his career, including serving as the CFO for PepsiCo and Frito-Lay International.

In the mid-1980s, Wells began teaching at HBS and rejoined the faculty in 2002. 

He has also been involved in various executive roles, such as being the European-based chief executive of Monitor Company, an international management company now owned by Deloitte, Datapaq, a company providing tools used to monitor and record the temperature inside ovens, now owned by Fluke, both of which he co-founded; Chairman of HelloSelf, a digital therapy company; and co-founder of Aceerex, an energy asset optimization software company.

In 2007, Wells was appointed President of the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, a prestigious business school known for its focus on executive education and leadership development.