06 August 2025
John Fisk, RTIANZ Life Member and former RITANZ chair, shares his pathway into the profession and insight into his experiences working in the industry.
Every artist needs pragmatism, just as every insolvency practitioner needs creativity. As PwC New Zealand’s Business Restructuring Services leader, John Fisk personifies this balance. While many view insolvency practitioners as "corporate undertakers" who shut businesses down and sell off assets, Fisk prefers a different framing: turnaround specialists who step in early, balancing different interests and assessing options that may offer businesses a real shot at survival.
“Every business goes through cycles,” Fisk explains. “Our best work happens before the decline becomes too steep. That’s when there’s time to be creative and set a business up for future success.”
Fisk didn’t set out to work in insolvency. He nearly became an artist after finishing at Gisborne Boys’ High School. “You couldn’t come across more extreme options,” he laughs. His parents nudged him toward accounting as the safer path. Without a university route, he worked part-time while attending Tairawhiti Community College. His first full-time job was doing farm accounting for Touche Ross in Gisborne, studying by correspondence at night. It was tough, but it taught him the discipline to balance work, study, and personal time.
That sense of balance was reinforced by an anonymous sponsor who gifted him an Outward-Bound experience at 19, an experience he still credits with shaping his approach to life and work.
In 1987, Fisk moved to Wellington with his now-wife Sharon, just after the sharemarket crash. A year later, he was asked to assist with the receivership of a signage company in Porirua. “I had no idea what insolvency was,” he recalls. But on day one, he was negotiating with creditors and managing a 50-person workforce. “Suddenly, I was working in a team that was responsible for running a business. We sold the business, saved the jobs, and paid the bank back in full. It was exhilarating and meaningful work.”
What began as a two-week stint turned into several months and eventually a career. In the early 1990s, with only two years of experience, Fisk secured a secondment to London during a recession. He found himself investigating fraud and working on major global cases, including the collapse of BCCI, the world’s largest bank failure at the time. “I could’ve worked 24 hours a day,” he says. “But it was an amazing way to see Europe and learn.”
Fisk thrives on the variety insolvency offers. It combines accounting, legal analysis, and people management across many different industries. “You have to relate to everyone, from the shop floor to the boardroom. The situation brings out the best and worst in people,” he says. Unlike accountants who record history, Fisk says, “insolvency practitioners make history. Our actions largely determine what happens to businesses, employees, and creditors.”
Returning to New Zealand, he found each case just as interesting and complex as those in London. “For example, you might think a dairy farm is just a dairy farm, but each has its own unique issues,” he notes. Market opportunities, practicalities of trading and risks need to be considered when looking at recovery options. With many of the finance company collapses Fisk has been appointed to, one key question always looms: what is the time value of money? “If investors are retirees, they can’t wait 10 years for asset recovery, even if that might appear nominally better. You’ve got to know your stakeholders and what’s right for them.”
Understanding where a business sits on what Fisk calls the "demise curve" is a critical skill. “You need to know when there's a turnaround opportunity, and when there isn’t.”
Over his 30-year career, Fisk has seen the sector mature. “Receiverships were once the go-to solution, but often a value destructive one. Now, banks and directors are better at early intervention. We’re brought in sooner, and often, that leads to better outcomes.”
But not all businesses can be saved. “Some are fundamentally not viable or are chronically undercapitalised. Experience teaches you to recognise that and bring things to a conclusion quickly.” Occasionally, Fisk admits, he looks back and wonders, “If we’d had more time or more money, could the outcome have been different?”
For those considering the field, Fisk says, “It suits pragmatic people who are fascinated by how businesses work. Accounting is a great foundation, but you also need an interest in law, strong commercial skills, and an empathetic ear, but also a thick skin.” Insolvency is emotionally charged. “When people lose money, they want someone to blame. You can become an easy target.”
Being a director can be tough, and limited liability comes with duties that include directors not taking illegitimate business risks. Sometimes directors take risks that are way beyond reasonable and their actions create serious loss for creditors. “We’ve taken action against directors who breached their duties and recovered funds for creditors who thought everything was lost. In these circumstances, Insolvency Practitioners play an important role in holding directors to account.”
Fisk recalls his experience working on Ross Asset Management, New Zealand’s largest Ponzi scheme. “Investor funds under management were supposed to be $450 million. However, there was almost nothing left when we were appointed,” he says. The team launched litigation to recover fictitious profits paid to some investors while others lost everything. “Some people walked away with both their capital and a return they hadn’t truly earned. Others were left with nothing.”
They took a test case all the way to the Supreme Court and eventually negotiated settlements with hundreds of investors. “We put in place a very principles-based settlement framework for investors and tried to avoid bankruptcies. Most people cooperated once we laid out the facts. But it was emotionally tough. Some investors were close to suicidal having to adjust to realising their life savings were gone.”
One of the hardest moral dilemmas arose from how funds were spent by investors who received fictitious profits. “If someone took their payout and spent it on a holiday, we couldn’t recover it, because legally they had changed their position. But if another investor had been cautious and saved the money and it was still in a bank account, we could claim it. That felt fundamentally unfair.”
Still, the job had its deeply rewarding moments. Fisk recalls a letter from an elderly investor thanking him for a payout that enabled cataract surgery. “That means a lot.”
The most confronting case of his career was the Pike River Mine disaster. Twenty-nine men died in an explosion, and three weeks later, Fisk was appointed receiver. “Meeting the families in Greymouth was heartbreaking.”
It was a deeply emotional environment. Within the first week, they had to make 150 staff redundant, many of whom had lost friends or relatives in the explosion. “You’ve got to recognise the emotional toll before dealing with the commercial issues,” Fisk reflects.
Almost every insolvency starts with an all-staff meeting. “You tell them you’ve been appointed, explain their rights, and try to keep the business going,” he says. But many employees are in shock.
Managing short-term staff morale while trying to stabilise a business is one of the more difficult aspects of the job. Clear communication is important, especially with the media, who Fisk sees as another stakeholder.
The job’s unpredictability is another challenge. “You don’t control your workload. It might be Christmas Eve. It might be late at night. You often work with half the information needed and make high-stakes decisions that impact on many people.”
Sometimes there's a chance to do a pre-appointment business review. But not always. Health and safety is another real concern, particularly in operational environments like transport or forestry. Fisk recalls a trucking company receivership. “You don’t want drivers heading out on the road moments after hearing the news of your appointment.”
Despite the pressure, unpredictability, and emotional toll, Fisk wouldn’t trade it. “It’s a meaningful career. Success is often a team effort, and I am grateful to have had fantastic teams to work with, both within PwC but also with our lawyers and colleagues we work with in the profession. Every day is different. You never know what you’ll come across, and that’s what feeds creativity.”