John Winter, CEO & Company Secretary

John took on the role of CEO of the Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association in February 2014.

Since taking on the role of CEO, John has led the restructuring of ARITA to become a financially sustainable and commercially run organisation. He has led a complete overhaul of the suite of education offerings, ensuring that courses offered by ARITA are market-relevant, accessible to small practices and comprehensively cover restructuring and turnaround.  John has also taken the lead on ARITA's advocacy and thought-leadership work, fronting many parliamentary inquiries on behalf of the profession and working collaboratively with stakeholders, such as Treasury, Attorney-General's, Productivity Commission, ASIC and AFSA on policy development.

John has been a member of Macquarie University's Departmental Advisory Board to the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance since 2011. Macquarie University is by far the largest accounting department in Australia, with over 1000 graduates a year coming from the School.

From 2012 to 2015 John was an Advisory Board Member to the CFO 2015 initiative. CFO 2015 was an exclusive private network for CFOs, aspiring CFOs and selected third party providers who can contribute to their success. CFO 2015 worked to transform the role of the CFO from a place of isolation to one of collaboration, influence and leadership, leveraging their power to influence positive change in society through ethical and sustainable business practice.

John was previously the Head of ACCA Australia and New Zealand. ACCA, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, is the global body for professional accountants with close to 600,000 members and students throughout 183 countries. He was part of ACCA's emerging markets team and therefore had extensive engagement with the South East Asian accounting community.

Prior to taking on the role as Head of ACCA ANZ, John worked as a senior marketing and communications professional across the recruitment industry, membership organisations and the banking and finance sector. His pasts roles include Chief Marketing Officer ANZ for leading listed international recruitment firm, Hudson. He has also worked for a major division of insurance firm QBE and was previously Director of Communications for the NSW Rural Fire Service – an organisation with 69,000 volunteer members where he managed all of the media communications during the devastating Christmas 2001 and 2002-3 bushfires, which drew global interest.

John was also a judge in the Telstra Business and Telstra Businesswomen’s Awards from 2010-2014.  He has an extensive background in media, including having been a weekly columnist in major metropolitan newspapers and, from 2009 to 2012, John appeared weekly on the news review program The Paul Murray Show on Sky News. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of NSW, majoring in Economics and Finance.

John's specialities include: Strategic leadership, stakeholder engagement, crisis management, marketing and brand development, thought leadership research and advocacy.

John’s community service encompassed over 20 years as a volunteer firefighter in the NSW Rural Fire Service, where he served as Captain of a Sydney-based Rural Fire Brigade and was awarded Life Membership in 2014. He was a State Executive (Board) Member of the NSW Rural Fire Service Association from 1998 to 1999.

He was a Councillor on Sydney’s Pittwater Council from 1992-1995, including serving a term as Deputy Mayor.