Our Executive Team

Chief Executive Officer

John Howard

MBA, AGSM, AICD

John Howard is a strong leader and experienced Chief Executive Officer with expertise in agriculture and financial industries. He is recognised for building highly effective and engaged teams in times of market expansion and rapid change. He is particularly strong at developing and deploying business strategy.  

John spent nearly 10 years in the grains industry as well as time spent in a stock and station agency and running the family farm in Walgett, NSW. He has worked across all areas of the agricultural supply chain, from primary production (family and corporate farming), commodity marketing, trading, manufacturing and food marketing. He also has experience in financial investment markets and financial restructuring. Prior to the RIC, John worked as a senior leader in organisations such as AAM Investment Group, CommStream Capital, Peanut Company of Australia, Golden Circle Limited and Mars Inc/Masterfoods.  

John has a strong appreciation for organisational governance and risk and holds a Masters of Business Administration and is a Graduate of the Australian Graduate School of Management and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 

Executive Director Program Delivery

Alli Gregory

BCom (Hons) 

Alli joined the RIC in February 2021 as Executive Director Program Delivery and leads our loan operations including assessment and credit functions.

Alli has 15 years’ experience in banking across commercial and government programs.

Prior to the RIC, Alli was Manager Program Administration at the NSW Rural Assistance Authority (RAA) where she spent four years leading and managing the delivery of the RAA’s program portfolio including loans, grants and other funding programs. She also led her team to embed best-practice operational tools and processes to support efficient program delivery aligned to governance and risk frameworks.

She also spent 10 years in the banking sector with ANZ, working as a senior manager responsible for the Central West’s retail branch network.

Alli has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of New England and lives in Orange, NSW.

Executive Director Corporate Services

Andrew Chambers

BIT, P30, AgilePM

Andrew has over 20 years of leadership experience in senior operations, project management, and information technology across government, not-for-profit, and commercial sectors. Since joining the RIC in January 2019 as Executive Manager Information and Technology, Andrew has established and enhanced RIC's ICT capabilities, data infrastructure, and cybersecurity posture.

Prior to his role at RIC, Andrew led the National Heart Foundation’s Enterprise Project Management Office, where he successfully oversaw and delivered transformative projects, strategic change initiatives and portfolio-level reporting across the company’s eight entities nationwide.

He also served as General Manager of software engineering firm Adaptive Systems, and as General Manager of Natural Resource Intelligence.

Residing in the Central West of NSW and having grown up on a mixed-agriculture farm, Andrew possesses firsthand experience of farm life during times of drought and economic stress. He is a fervent advocate for the value that RIC loans provide, not only to individual farm enterprises but also to broader regional prosperity and a more resilient agricultural industry in Australia.

Andrew holds a Bachelor of Information Technology from Charles Sturt University and qualifications in project management, cybersecurity, and leadership.