ABOUT US
Everything for reputation.
For reputation is everything.
OUR MISSION
To help organisations avoid costly wrong hires and unlock human potential.
In the AI decade, we protect what’s unmistakeably human in the workforce. The qualities that can’t be automated and shouldn’t be overlooked.
OUR
VISION
Open Reputation.
Doing for talent what Open Banking did for financial access, by turning fragmented signals into structured, decision-ready infrastructure.
OUR STORY
Blue John was born in a caravan. No big office. No grand plan. Just a simple belief: everything is now a business story. And because of that, reputation isn’t one thing. It’s everything.
It’s a thread that runs through every part of an organisation and every person within it. It doesn’t sit in a communication plan. It sits in the people decision: talent acquisition, talent management, and leadership development.
Because people are reputation. They shape it and protect it. And, sometimes, put it at risk.
That conviction led Lorna Cobbett to build GREY, a neuroscience-led platform that turns reputation into decision-ready insight, helping organisations avoid costly wrong hires and spot potential other misses.
THE STORY BEHIND THE NAME
The Blue John is a rare and beautiful stone found only in Derbyshire, England.
The story goes that the French named it ‘bleu et jaune,’ given the colours in the stone, but the locals misheard, and it became known as ‘Blue John.’
Each stone is unique, with no two stones having the same colour pattern. It’s as individual as a fingerprint.
And that’s exactly how we see people and organisations.
Every individual carries a unique behavioural signature: patterns shaped by experience, context, and character. No two people respond to pressure the same way. No two leaders build trust identically. No two reputations form through the same combination of signals.
And when you bring people together? No two organisations share the same behavioural DNA. The same Grey Flags don’t surface in the same places. The same Lightning Bolts don’t cluster in the same teams. Every organisation has its own distinct pattern of how people show up, how trust forms, how reputation is managed, and how risk hides.
Because understanding people isn’t about fitting them into categories. It’s about seeing them clearly and helping organisations make decisions with eyes wide open.
The story of Blue John lives on: one person, one organisation at a time.
INTERESTED IN PARTNERING WITH US OR JOINING THE TEAM?
Get in touch and let’s chat.
Meet the Founder
Lorna Cobbett
Founder & CEO
Former Goldman Sachs banker and Analyst Class 2001 at Citi, Lorna later became UK CEO of a leading strategic communication consultancy. For more than two decades, she has advised companies and leaders on reputation, transactions, crisis, and change.
After decades of hiring and leading teams, Lorna saw firsthand that the biggest reputation risk often sits in people decisions. That led her to found Blue John and build GREY: the product she wished had existed throughout her career.
Outside of work, Lorna is a social mobility champion (founding member of The 93% Professionals) and advocate for children’s hospice charities (Together for Short Lives and Chestnut Tree House), following the death of her severely disabled life-limited triplet daughter aged 18 months.