Joe Aston helmed the Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window column from 2012 to 2023.
In 2025 he launched Rampart, a premium subscription news publication specialising in Australian business and finance.
Access the peerless analysis and writing of Joe Aston with a Rampart subscription.
author, commentator, speaker
Joe Aston is one of Australia’s most influential commentators on business, finance and politics.
For 12 years he struck fear into the hearts of the nation’s political and corporate leaders, transforming The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window into the nation’s premier daily column.
There he interrogated some of Australia’s biggest business stories including Rio Tinto’s Juukan Gorge scandal; CPA Australia and its Naked CEO Alex Malley; the decline and fall of both Magellan Financial Group and Alan Joyce’s Qantas; and the PwC tax leaks scandal.
His editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury said Aston “turned a gossip column into a form of journalism like never before seen in Australia, and arguably the world.”
In 2024, he became a best-selling author with the publication of his first book, The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out.
And in 2025, he launched Rampart, a premium subscription news publication specialising in Australian business and finance.
Before entering journalism, Aston was a speechwriter and adviser to politicians Joe Hockey and Bruce Baird, and at airlines Qantas and Etihad. He lives in Sydney.
Whether it’s for your board meeting, leadership group or industry gathering, Joe Aston is now available for speaking engagements.
“Joe Aston is surely one of Australia’s most unique and informed speakers an organisation could consider for their event. With a front row seat to the nation’s biggest corporate scandals over the decade he helmed the AFR’s notorious Rear Window column, he offers a behind-the-scenes and candid take on the nation’s business and political culture. But he also offers essential lessons for current and emerging leaders to avoid the mistakes of many others, and delivers them in a more thoughtful and considered style than longtime readers of his always-forceful journalism might expect. Highly recommended.”
“We had Joe at two events in Sydney and Melbourne to talk about his observations on corporate Australia and implications for investor activism. He was excellent. He had our clients shifting from raucous laughter one minute to furious agreement the next. Joe is intelligent and inquiring but also funny and completely unafraid to speak the truth. It is such a rare skill to be able to inform and entertain at the same time and Joe does that in spades.”
“Joe Aston facilitated the most anticipated and well-received session of ASA's 2024 Investor Conference. Joe is a great speaker and facilitator, bringing a fantastic understanding of business issues. He resonated extremely well with our audience and had a terrific rapport with panelists while asking the tough questions.”
