Ken Leo, BCom (Hons), MBA, has been an academic for over 40 years, including 20 years as Professor of Accounting at a University in Western Australia. During this time, he has taught company accounting to undergraduate and postgraduate students. He has been involved in writing books published by John Wiley since 1981, and has also written books and monographs for other organisations including CPA Australia, the Group of 100 and the Australian Accounting Research Foundation. He was a founding member of the Urgent Issues Group, serving on that body from 1995 to 2001. He subsequently served on the Australian Accounting Standards Board from 2002 to 2007, both as a member and as deputy chair of the Board.

John Hoggett, BCom (Hons), BTh, MFM, AAUQ, FCPA, has taught accounting at several different universities in Western Australia and Queensland during his 40 years as an academic. He has taught introductory accounting, corporate accounting and accounting theory to undergraduate and postgraduate students. John has written books and monographs for a variety of organisations including CPA Australia and the Group of 100. He was also involved in secondary accounting education for several years with the Curriculum Council of Western Australia.

John Sweeting, BEc, MEc, PhD, CPA, CA, was Senior Lecturer in Accountancy at Queensland University of Technology. John’s background includes a mixture of academic and business positions. He has taught at Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Central Queensland, and has spent time with the National Companies and Securities Commission (now the Australian Securities and Investments Commission). John has also held positions with a large international chartered accounting fi rm and a company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. In addition to running in-house courses for accounting fi rms, John has also conducted Professional Development courses for CPA Australia and The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. He has also been actively involved in both the CPA Program and the CA Program.

With contributions from
Gavin Nicholson, BEcon, LLB, MBA(Adv), PhD, FAICD, AFAIM is an Associate Professor in Accountancy at Queensland University of Technology. In addition to researching, lecturing and developing materials in the areas of governance policy and practice, Gavin is an experienced director, governance researcher and board consultant. Gavin has provided advice on corporate governance and strategy to listed and large public companies, government-owned corporations, statutory authorities, not-for-profi t organisations and local government. He has published extensively in the area of corporate governance, co-authoring two books Boards that Work: A New Guide for Directors and Board, Director and CEO Evaluation and more than 50 journal articles or refereed conference papers. Gavin is an active speaker on both practical and academic governance issues and has presented his work in Australasia, Africa, Europe and North America.