TMA People
The TMA Australia Board consist of highly regarded professionals who are deeply connected to the turnaround industry and dedicate a significant amount of their own time to the TMA and the overall betterment of the turnaround and corporate renewal in Australia.
Chair
Maria O’Brien
Baker & McKenzie
Maria is the head of the Restructuring & Insolvency (R&I) practice in Baker McKenzie’s Australian offices, led the firm’s Asia Pacific R&I Working Group for 3 years, and is on the global R&I Steering Committee. She has considerable insolvency experience both litigious and advisory acting for insolvent companies and their directors (including in safe harbour assignments), as well as for administrators, receivers and liquidators, and for creditors. Maria is a Band One ranked lawyer in Restructuring/Insolvency by Chambers and has been ranked in the peer-assessed Best Lawyers for Insolvency and Reorganisations every year since 2009. She is a member of the Federal Court’s Commercial & Corporations (Insolvency) User’s Group, and co-author of the Australian chapter for the Asian Business Law Institute’s Principles of Business Restructuring Project.
President
Chris Martin
KordaMentha
Chris is one of Australia’s leading transformation, turnaround and corporate renewal advisors. He is a qualified solicitor and chartered accountant with a broad range of advisory and operational experience. Having previously worked as a management consultant and an investment banker Chris has a long history in assessing and improving corporate performance. He works with C-suite executives and public sector enterprises in assisting them with their most challenging issues.
Vice President
Zina Edwards
Hamilton Locke
Zina is a founding partner of law firm Hamilton Locke. She is a finance and restructuring lawyer focused on the non-bank lender market. She advises numerous funds, asset managers and other non-bank participants in relation to investments in complex structured finance and hybrid transactions, secondary trades, restructuring and special situations. Zina has also worked on a large number of distressed and performing portfolio sale transactions in Australia and across Asia acting for both purchasers and sellers.
Director
Paul Apathy
Herbert Smith Freehills
Paul is a highly experienced practitioner specialising in restructuring, insolvency and special situations. He is also the global co-chair of the firm’s Restructuring, Turnaround and Insolvency practice.
He has extensive regional, international and cross-border experience advising creditors, companies, private equity and hedge funds in respect of restructurings and distressed situations. His clients include corporates such as Speedcast, Arq Group, Retail Food Group, Imdex and Arrium; banks such as National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Deutsche Bank, Macquarie Bank, Nomura and Standard Chartered Bank; and funds such as Carlyle, KKR, Värde, HPS, Blackstone and OCP, along with other leading corporations, banks, funds and insolvency firms.
Director
Jennifer Ball
Clayton Utz
Jennifer is currently a Director of the National Board of the Turnaround Management Association Australia (TMAA) since 2014; a former Chair (2013 – 2015) and former member (2010 – 2019) of the TMAA NSW Committee. She is a senior Partner in the Restructuring & Insolvency and Commercial Litigation practice at Clayton Utz and is consistently recognised by clients and peers in major legal directories as a recognised leader and expert in restructuring and insolvency, general commercial litigation, debt recovery and alternative dispute resolution since 2009. Her focus on the recent insolvency law reforms including, the safe harbour and ipso facto law reforms and the recent Government review; the small business insolvency law reform and more recently, the scheme of arrangement reforms, positions her to proactively identify and advise on the full spectrum of legal issues in a restructure scenario, including devising any restructuring plan.
Director
Gayle Dickerson
KPMG
Gayle is a partner in Deals Advisory at KPMG, focused on turnaround, restructuring and insolvency, with over 15 years of experience, in both the UK and Australia. She is a registered insolvency practitioner and NSW Committee member of the Turnaround Management Association. She has acted in a range of corporate insolvency, restructuring and advisory matters and acts for a range of stakeholders including corporates, Government, lenders, employees and shareholders.
Director
Ben Gibson
Pickles
Ben Gibson heads up the Advisory Team for Pickles in Western Australia. Ben has over 25 years of experience in the valuation, auction and finance industry. He manages large scale asset valuation and sale projects on behalf of banks, insolvency practitioners and large corporations along with assisting his clients to develop liquidity and asset-based solutions during times of transition.
Director
Scott Guthrie
Thomson Geer
Scott Guthrie draws on his more than 25 years’ of expertise to advise clients in the finance, insolvency and property industries. A significant part of Scott’s practice involves acting for various stakeholders in the unsecured and secured insolvency market. Scott regularly advises and acts for receivers, liquidators, administrators and bankruptcy trustees in identifying, preserving and recovering assets for secured and unsecured creditors. Scott also represents directors and company officers, particularly in response to investigations and enforcement action by ASIC and other corporate regulators.
Director
Marcus Derwin
R Cubed Group
Marcus is a highly experienced corporate executive with an extensive background in corporate restructuring, turnaround consulting and crisis management. He has operated in executive and Board roles across a vast cross section of industry sectors as CEO, COO, Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO) and in senior Finance roles across a number of international markets (including the USA, UK and Australia).
Director
Richard Hughes
Deloitte
Richard is the Queensland Restructuring Services Lead Partner. He specialises in corporate insolvency and business turnaround and has over 20 years of professional experience. His clients include corporates, major financiers and other professional advisors. Richard has a broad range of experience across a range of sectors, including manufacturing, property, retail, tourism, motor vehicle dealers; however, his main specialty is Agribusiness.
Director
Alinta Kemeny
Ashurst Australia
Alinta Kemeny is a partner in Ashurst’s restructuring and special situations team. Alinta has expertise in large cross border corporate restructuring, refinancing, formal insolvency and special situations work and she specialises in complex multi-jurisdictional financial restructuring matters. Alinta works for a wide range of debtors, banks, distressed fund investors and insolvency practitioners.
Director
Jeffrey Largier
Allegro Funds
Jeffrey has over ten years of experience in investment banking and private equity. Jeffrey commenced his career at UBS Investment Bank in Sydney in 2007, where he worked in the General Industrials and Financial Institutions Groups. While at UBS, Jeffrey was involved in advising a range of clients across private equity and corporates on buy-side, sell-side and capital raising engagements.
Jeffrey joined Allegro in 2013. Jeffrey is responsible for deal sourcing, appraisal and execution as well as management of portfolio companies including various operational turnaround initiatives. During his time at Allegro, Jeffrey has been involved in the acquisition, turnaround and/or transformation of TSC Group, Carpet Court, Eagle Boys, JSW Australia, Terrex Seismic and Questas Group.
Director
John Nestel (CTP)
Faraday Associates
John co-founded Faraday in 2018 having retired from the partnership at Herbert Smith Freehills. John had been a partner of Freehills for 20 years. During that time he was Global Head of Finance, he formed the Restructuring, Turnaround and Insolvency Group inside HSF, he was a champion for the firm’s renewable energy and clean technology practices and led the firm’s relationships with the world’s largest credit funds. Prior to joining Freehills, John was associate to Justice Morling of the Federal Court of Australia and the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. John has played a major role in significant financing transactions, including a large number of high-profile privatisations and infrastructure projects, most recently in the renewable energy, transportation, telecommunications, and media and gaming industries.
Director
Jason Preston
McGrathNicol
Jason is the Chairman of McGrathNicol and has more than 20 years of restructuring and insolvency experience. As a highly regarded specialist, he helps businesses facing operational and financial distress. Jason has advised on many of the landmark restructuring matters in the Australian market. He also works with company boards and management to provide strategic and innovative solutions to challenging situations. Examples of high profile assignments include buy side financial advice to Cyrus Capital on Virgin Australia, advising Babcock & Brown on a financial restructure and asset divestment process, acting as the administrator of Toys R Us and as the receiver of Quintis Ltd.
Director
Jane Starkins
ANZ
An innovative financial services leader with hands on experience in relationship and credit management, having led team and clients across a broad spectrum of industries including food and beverage, FMCG, transport & logistics and manufacturing sectors.
Strengths include building and leading high-performance teams with strong, positive culture. Proven capabilities in managing stakeholder relationships, risk (credit / operational) and delivering outcomes in difficult circumstances. Appreciates challenges and enjoys tackling problems that require novel approaches to resolution. Focused on organisation and business unit strategy; passionate in translating and executing strategy through all roles across the team. Sound written and oral communication, an eye for detail, and an unyielding focus on driving excellence in client service.
Director
Kate White
Glas Agency
Kate joined Global Loan Agency Services Australia (GLAS Australia) on its inception in the Australia market in 2017. Kate has led and contributed to building the business in Australia to a level where GlAS Australia now manages in excess of 150 financial transaction and has a growing team of 15 staff.