Last month, Summerland Director, John Shanahan was honoured with an honorary Doctorate for his services to Southern Cross University, at a graduation ceremony held in Sydney.
John served as Deputy Chancellor of the University for three years and was a member of the University’s Council for 13 years. During his term, John chaired the University’s Finance Committee and the Audit and Risk Management Committee, the latter of which he continues to be a member. Throughout his time at the University, John has been an enthusiastic attendee of graduation ceremonies, having officiated at 15 of them, where he has shaken the hands of thousands of graduates.
On receiving his honorary Doctorate, John joked to graduates, “Look on the bright side, it hasn’t taken you lot 13 years to get a degree has it?”
Formerly a Big 4 firm audit and technical partner, John has been an accounting and auditing academic for 12 years, and advised the China National Audit Office on risk-based financial audits. He was also an author of the 1997 Federal Government report on universities’ financial statements and advised the government on changes to reporting guidelines for Australian universities for five years.
As a forensic accountant, John was an investigator for the South Australian Auditor-General in the inquiry into the collapse of the State Bank of South Australia and prepared an expert’s report for the HIH Royal Commission. He was also formerly a Partner in National Assurance and Advisory Services of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and worked as part of an international project team on the development of Deloitte’s audit methodology, AS/2. He was the auditor of several Australian and international listed companies, including Accor Asia Pacific, Avis, Dyno Nobel Asia Pacific, The Adelaide Steamship Company and Vodafone.
The in 17 January 2002 edition of the Australian Financial Review referred to John in an editorial as an “auditing doyen”. John has since appeared before the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit Review of Independent Auditing, a Senate Select Committee inquiring into the Audit of Superannuation Funds and the N.S.W. Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee Inquiry into Accrual Accounting.
Within higher education, in 2009 John was a lecturer in the M.Com. Program at Sydney University, lecturing on Corporate Financial reporting. He was an Adjunct at Macquarie Graduate School of Management in 2006 and 2007 and was formerly an accounting academic for 12 years, being a lecturer in the M.Com. Program at the University of NSW. He also lectured in Accounting and Auditing at the then Canberra College of Advanced Education (now the University of Canberra) from 1971 to 1978. Overseas, John was a visiting lecturer at Birmingham University and Heriot-Watt University in the UK in 1974.
John has conducted training courses and seminars for ASIC, the ATO, the Australian National Audit Office, the Audit Office of NSW, The Queensland Audit Office, the South Australian Auditor-General’s Office, the ASX and the Federal Judicial Commission. He presented a post-graduate course in Financial Statement Analysis for the Financial Services Institute (Finsia) for over 10 years.
He served on the editorial board of Butterworth’s Australian Corporations Law reporter service and is the author of the textbooks AIFRS Guide to Accounting Standards (8th ed.) and Guide to Accounting Regulation (3rd ed.) plus the CCH text Leasing in Australia … the Accounting and Taxation Implications. A 9th edition of AIFRS Guide to Accounting Standards is in preparation for release as an ebook.
John has been a Director of Summerland for the past 8 years and Chair of the Credit Union’s Board Audit and Risk Committee. Summerland would like to take this opportunity to congratulate John and his family on this achievement and thank him for his ongoing commitment and passion for his role as Director.
