NICK RENTON AM

Nick Renton is a consulting actuary, commercial arbitrator, company director and writer. He was born in 1931 and qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries in 1957. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.

In 1975 he was elected a Fellow of the Securities Institute of Australia for his services to the industry.

After 15 years as Principal Officer of a life insurance company he became the first Executive Director of the Life Offices' Association of Australia from 1975 to 1979. He was Executive Director of the Life Insurance Federation of Australia from its formation in 1979 until 1986. In those capacities he acted as the official spokesman for the life insurance industry.

He is now an independent business consultant to leading stockbrokers, insurance companies, employer organisations, government agencies and others. He also serves on the boards of several financial institutions and is in great demand as a speaker at seminars and conferences.

He was the founder and first president of the Australian Shareholders' Association and has been Federal president of the Australian Society of Security Analysts and Victorian chairman of the Commercial Law Association of Australia.

Nick Renton retired as a director of OFM Investment Group Limited, a financial services company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, on turning age 72 in 2003. He had been on the board of that company and its predecessor since 1987.

Nick Renton has been published by 11 different publishers in Australia and the United States. He has written books about more different topics than any other Australian author.

His Guide for Meetings and Organisations, published by the Law Book Company, has been widely used as a reference work on all aspects of chairmanship and the running of voluntary associations since it first appeared in 1961. It deals with many practical aspects of meetings procedure not covered in Joske and is now in a two volume eighth edition.

He is the author of some 60 published books - covering shares, property, managed investments, taxation, wills, good writing, public relations, the Internet and the Australian economy - as well as of numerous papers to professional bodies.

He has published nearly 600 articles in newspapers and financial journals in recent years.

In 1992 he was awarded the prestigious H M Jackson Memorial Prize for two of his works, Understanding Dividend Imputation (now superseded by Income Tax and Investment) and Retirement Handbook (now superseded by Learn more about Retirement Planning).

In 1995 he received the Ken Millar Award for his best-selling Understanding the Stock Exchange and his highly controversial Company Directors: Masters or Servants?

Nick Renton bought his first computer in 1986. He now maintains his own web site of over 120 pages at http://users.bigpond.net.au/renton/

He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2004.

He is married and has three children. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.