About John
Dr John Goddard commenced his career with BOC (British Oxygen Company) as a technician apprentice. Following five years of technical training he completed a four-year Industrial Engineering BSc degree at Hatfield Polytechnic. During this time he worked in BOC’s central engineering team implementing advanced manufacturing systems in the UK, Europe and South Africa.
In his 30's John expanded his skills through management consulting organisations KPMG and Coopers & Lybrand in the UK, South Africa and Australia assisting clients manage change while implementing new business solutions. This work led to John founding a consulting company (Cimplan) focused on implementing ICT solutions based on open systems, which he led for five years before returning to a large ICT organisation - Hewlett Packard. While at HP he completed a MA through Macquarie University.
In 2004 he became the CEO of a privately held software company (Rockend) which he led for ten years, growing client numbers from 1200 to 4500 and increasing profit by 12 times. The business won multiple national client service awards, increased employee engagement and maintained high staff retention levels.
Today John leads an advisory firm, Better Managers and chairs a CEO group of business owners in Sydney. In 2026 he was awarded a Doctor of Business Administration degree by Charles Sturt University based on research undertaken with NSW mid north coast firms which participated in a community of practice network. His thesis is titled "Exploring the impact of Action Learning and Communities of Practice on Owner-Manager and Business Performance in Regional Networks."