Joe Aston is one of the nation's most influential commentators on business and politics, his name synonymous with that of his column Rear Window, published each weekday on the back page of The Australian Financial Review.

Since 2011, Aston has been publicly flagellating billionaires, politicians and our most powerful corporate leaders for their miscellaneous infelicities, malapropisms and outright bad behaviour.

In the words of his own Editor-in-Chief Michael Stutchbury, Rear Window under Aston has become "the most compelling example of the genre I have come across and certainly had responsibility for in 40 years of journalism" and "the outstanding gossip column in the entire
Australian media today – show me a better one."

And as Fairfax Media's chief executive Greg Hywood recently observed, Aston has "made sure no one who dared to put his or her head above the parapet of public life was safe. And I mean no one."

For two seasons, Aston brought Rear Window to the screen, in a weekly segment for the Nine Network.

And in May 2015, AFR Weekend (The Financial Review's Saturday edition) launched a new back page column, The Adventures of Joe Aston. The weekly missive chronicles Aston's First Class travails around the globe – a collection of his most cynical observations penned from superyachts and fashion shows, fine hotels and outlandish parties.

He is a former adviser to politicians Joe Hockey and Bruce Baird, and to airlines Qantas and Etihad.

He is based in Sydney.