Michael Atkins was a founding partner of a national Chartered Accounting practice from 1979 to 1987 and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia between 1984 and 2011.
Between 1987 and 1998, he was involved in the executive management of several public listed resource companies with operations in Australia, USA, South East Asia and Africa. From 1990 to 1995, he was managing director and later a non-executive director of Claremont Petroleum NL and Beach Petroleum NL during their reconstruction, and remained as a non-executive director until 1995. Mr Atkins was also founding executive chair of Gallery Gold until 1998, and remained a non-executive director until 2000.