Allan Edward Cook

Chief Executive Cobham PLC

Appointed to the Cobham board in 2001, Allan Cook, has an honours degree in electronic/control systems engineering, and has more than 30 years international experience working in the automotive, aerospace and defence industries on high technology products and systems.  Allan was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list in 2008.

His career started with Ferranti where he worked in their inertial systems laboratory for three years, before moving to Bourns/Pmi where he developed fuel injection systems for Bosch in the automotive industry.  He was made managing director of Bourns/Pmi at the age of 35 responsible for their European sales and manufacture.

In 1988 he joined Hughes Electronics as CEO for their Scottish operations, responsible for aerospace and defence programmes including AMRAAM, APG65 Radar and space operations.  He subsequently took on full responsibility for Hughes (Europe) and was based in Brussels covering operations in the UK, Germany, Spain and Russia.  Allan joined GEC-Marconi in 1995 to head up their Airborne Radar Division responsible for the development of the ECR 90 radar for the Eurofighter.  He was promoted to Group Managing Director of the Avionics business prior to the merger with BAe and was responsible for all the Group’s Eurofighter systems including Airborne Radar, DASS, Helmet and Flight Control Systems.  Other programme responsibilities included JSF development, Phoenix, TIALD and JORN. Following the merger with BAe he became Eurofighter Group Managing Director for BAE Systems, before joining Cobham in 2001.

Allan is President of A|D|S (formerly the Society of British Aerospace Companies Ltd), Chairman of the Skills Academy , a director of SMMT Industry Forum and the DTI Aerospace Forum.  

He is married to Kath with two daughters; Sarah and Victoria, and a grandson called Arran.  His hobbies include squash, walking, wine and music.