Professor John Spinks, is currently Senior Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), with responsibilities for student admission to HKU, local and international student recruitment, and international student exchanges, amongst others, having earlier been Pro-Vice-Chancellor with responsibilities for teaching and learning. He has sat on boards or councils of several tertiary institutions in Asia and beyond, and has been Chair of the Internationalization Subcommittee of the Heads of Universities Committee of Hong Kong, overseeing the development of international student recruitment for the Hong Kong universities.

He works frequently in many Asian countries, but especially Mainland China, helping to set up collaborative arrangements and promoting HKU in relation to student recruitment. HKU currently attracts around 10,000 applicants from just Mainland China alone for the 250 places made available annually. In the field of quality assurance, Professor Spinks has been a reviewer on site visits for a number of agencies, and has run workshops and seminars and given keynote speeches on quality assurance in several Asian countries, particularly in the area of the quality assurance of online education. He has also been invited to give presentations and write papers on strategic marketing for tertiary institutions.