John Winter: Stay the course, wherever it leads
John Winter
CEO
Australian Restructuring Insolvency & Turnaround Association (ARITA)
Tuesday, October 20, 1987.
John Winter, a kid from Sydney’s Northern Beaches, is nearing the end of his first year at the University of NSW.
With just two years left of his Commerce degree, majoring in Economics and Finance, John is on target to achieve his high school dream of becoming a stockbroker.
He has always been fascinated by markets. But on this infamous day, the markets will prove to be at their most fascinating, as the economic atomic bomb that is the US stock market crash sends crippling ripple effects across the planet from its epicentre in New York.
By the time the shockwaves hit our shores, Black Tuesday – as it becomes known – will go down in history as the day Australia’s share market lost 25% of its value. By the end of the month, just 11 days later, it will have dropped an eye-watering 41%. Our national economy will take the better part of seven years to properly recover.
“I was at uni with a bunch of mates,” recalls John of that fateful day. “Somebody said, ‘We've heard the stock market's crashing.’ We then had to walk a kilometre to my car to turn on the radio, because there was no other way to get the news at that point in time.
“And we went, ‘Oh, my God, the stock market is crashing.’ So we drove into the city and we watched the stock market crash. But we also watched our careers evaporate, because there was not going to be a stockbroker’s job for love nor money for the next five-plus years. And there wasn't. So, it was a case of, come out (of uni) and survive … in the recession we had to have.”
Today, as the CEO of the Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association (ARITA), you could argue there is no better life-shaping memory for someone in his role.
It was a pivotal period that strengthened John’s powers of empathy and resilience, core values that have served him well in the decades since.
Sticking with his degree and training as an economist, John worked for an international executive search firm out of uni and then became Head of Economic Research at recruitment heavyweight Morgan & Banks, where he pioneered the company’s quarterly Job Index. This was one of the first tools of its kind to leverage authentic survey data to measure employment expectations and identify workforce trends. Such was its reputation, each Index release was eagerly anticipated – and consumed – by media, industry associations, job seekers and recruiters. It helped John generate a remarkable $60 million in publicity during a three-year period and firmly established the power of data to drive decision-making, insights and industry reporting.
“I had the incredibly good fortune of sitting next to (founders) Geoff Morgan and Andrew Banks for the nearly five years I was there, which was like doing an MBA every day,” John says. “When I started there, Morgan & Banks had about 150 staff. When I left, it had 1500. It was a stellar period of time.”
Stints followed in consulting, corporate communications for the NSW Rural Fire Service, media and crisis management, as well as senior marketing roles in organisations such as QBE and Hudson, before association leadership beckoned.
In 2011 John joined global body ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) as Head of Australia and New Zealand.
“I have what is kindly called a portfolio career, which means I’ve done lots of stuff,” he says.
“When you do come from a diversified background, it really nicely sets you up to run associations because they are such diverse organisations. It’s very different to running a corporation.
“The most critical thing you need to understand is that relating to members is very different to relating to a client. You’re not selling a product or a service in a traditional way (in associations). You have to have the commerciality of being able to run an organisation, but you need to understand your engagement with the member base is a fundamentally different connection. Members have different expectations of what you do as an organisation and how you treat them as individuals.
“The association landscape is changing. There is a generational shift occurring. Younger people are looking very differently at what membership means. They are less inclined to join associations and they are much more transient in their career plans. That is a profound challenge, particularly for professional bodies where it’s assumed you have one career. We need to be adapting to that change and planning and evolving our organisations with a 10-year-plus lens.”
“Members have their own needs and wants. One member is going to want advocacy, while another one wants events or services. The whole point of being an association CEO is knowing that, understanding that and not expecting all your members to be alike. You have to cater for the person who wants A, B and C and you also have to cater for the stuff they don't know they yet want.”
John left ACCA to join ARITA in 2014 and is in his 10th year as CEO. Clearly bitten by the bug, he balances his duties with being President of the Australasian Association of Association Executives (AuSAE), the peak professional association for association leaders.
“We need to create more strong association leaders and we need to be out and proud about what we do,” John says. “That’s why I am the zealot I am in taking on the role of AuSAE President – I believe there are opportunities for good change.
“There’s not enough internal succession and many boards don’t have the belief that another association CEO in an unrelated field is the best choice.
“The way you change it is by building the bench strength in every association from the ground up, so you’ve got great emerging talent who will be the future leaders in what is regarded as a proper career choice.
“We need to better articulate the value of taking a leadership role in an association from the executive side, because we have to move away from the concept that this is a retirement job for someone who has been a member of the association for a long time.
“To run a competitive, sustainable and future-proof association requires strategic vision and real energy. It’s not the place you come to put your feet up.
“We also need to capitalise on our point of difference, which is that we are for-purpose entities. When you show up and do your job here, there are people out there who genuinely appreciate it and that is incredibly rewarding. We run intensely commercial operations, but we do it for purpose; and that lets you go to bed at night feeling satisfied and happy.”
John, who has a young family and loves yacht racing on Sydney’s waters, is relishing his role as a crusader, advocate, innovator and disciplinarian shaping policy and reform, and driving proper professional practice.
But most pleasing is his here and now, and all that contemporary professional life offers, some 37 years after the world as he knew it wobbled for a bit.
“What it taught me is that you can't be linear,” John says, referencing the fallout from Black Tuesday. “Go where the opportunity takes you and try not to have a blinkered view to what you do next. And while yes, I've had this portfolio career, it's been a wonderful journey. I've learned so much. It's been brilliant because I have this wonderful world view and I’ve got such a broad appreciation of what happens in other people's lives.
“So I'm incredibly fortunate that it probably started from that pivotal moment of saying to myself (in 1987), ‘You know what, this isn't in my hands, I can't control the future. But by God, I'm going to work my guts out to try and make the best of that future.’”
WINTER WISDOM: TOP TIPS FOR ASSOCIATION LEADERS
Realise members are different to customers and be empathetic.
Be valuable and indispensable to your members.
Always watch the bottom line and plan for the future of that bottom line 10 years from now.
Focus on service and product delivery, not just membership drives.
Use technology to serve members better.