John Baikie is an international speaker who has held senior executive positions in a range of businesses for over thirty years including being Managing Director, Executive Director and Chairman of venture capital (“VC”) management, investment, insurance, IT, home building, construction, real estate, executive development and financial services companies, including three that were stock exchange listed companies.
 
Migrating to Australia in 1985 he was appointed Managing Director of B.T. Innovation Ltd., a former Bankers Trust, listed VC company.  During his twelve years in the Australian VC industry he negotiated numerous business and technology acquisitions, disposals and capital raisings as well as being a founding director of the Australian Venture Capital Association; chairman or director of start up companies in VC, IT, aquaculture, engineering and medicine.

In recent years he has mentored CEOs in Sydney for The Executive Connection the largest international CEO development organisation in the world and now mentors business owners, CEOs and senior executives through MPowering Pty Ltd. a privately owned executive development company. He is on the Australian Institute of Company Directors Panel of Mentors.  Click here for more information.

He has delivered executive development programs in the US, Australia, Asia and Europe for Executive Conversation Inc. a US based professional sales development organisation (http://www.conversation.com/) and, through MPowering Pty Ltd., currently presents executive development workshops on business related topics,  including negotiation skills; influence; persuasion; decision making; conflict resolution; confidence and assertiveness.
 
Prior to arriving in Australia, he was Managing Director of Sage Property Holdings Ltd. in South Africa, a large construction and real estate group of companies building over 2,000 houses each year and employing over 1,000 people; and Deputy Managing Director of the Sage Group, responsible for Group investments, venture capital, property and equity funds, including the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Hertz car rental franchises and a Mercedes Benz distributorship. He was also Financial Controller of Feltex Ltd., a public listed textile manufacturing conglomerate;  a senior lecturer in accountancy at a South African university and a chartered accountant with Ernst and Young.  In Toronto, Canada, he was a computer systems engineer and salesman with IBM (Canada).

John has long experience in the theory and practice of business negotiation having been responsible for negotiating innumerable transactions including major real estate and business acquisitions and disposals; leases; senior executive terminations and dispute settlements.

He is a Fellow member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Board member of the National Speakers Association of Australia. He was previously a founding director of The Futures Foundation, (an organisation of Australian futurists), a director and treasurer of the Australian Association of Lloyd’s Members, a council member of the Harvard Club of Australia and President of the Wahroonga, NSW Rotary Club that awarded him a Paul Harris Fellowship in recognition of his services to Rotary International. He has professional qualifications in accountancy, computers and business management in Australia, South Africa and the UK; university degrees in commerce and economics and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School in the USA.

John is fiercely committed to assisting executives to improve their business performance, profits and to achieve a healthy balance between their professional and personal lives.