People 9_15_03

The chairman of investment bank JPMorgan thought Ron Dewhurst had lost his marbles when he turned down an offer to run the global business in favor of returning to Melbourne with his wife and two children … and no job.

But Dewhurst, who went to Australia last year to be near family, has a penchant for going places and doing unusual things. In his lengthy career, he has held a number of roles in Australia, Asia, Europe and the U.S. His most recent was as New York-based Head of Americas for the bank’s asset management group.

Before that, he was on Wall Street for 13 years running JPMorgan’s Fleming Asset Management group.

He has also sandwiched his working life with sabbaticals. In 1980, he took a year off to coach three Olympic athletes, including Australian sprinter Raylene Boyle, who earned a berth on her fourth Olympic team. Since returning to Australia from New York last year, Dewhurst has been assessing a number of opportunities. Then AccTrak21 came a calling. The developer of accounting and business software, which has it’s U.S. offices based in Lake City, Minn., said last week that Dewhurst joined the company as a non-executive director and investor.

Adjusting to the new way of life doesn’t sound like it will be much of a problem for Dewhurst.

;It was a bigger adjustment for me to go from running the third-biggest assets fund to sitting on my tail figuring what to do next,” he says. —A.G.