Stephen Johnston

Effective May 2020, Stephen Johnston is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for DURA Automotive Systems. In this role, he has overall responsibility for the company’s financial strategy and activities, including accounting, financial controlling, financial reporting, treasury, and tax matters worldwide.

Stephen joins DURA Automotive bringing 25 years of diverse, global experience as a Tier 1 divisional CFO, corporate controller and Big 4 partner. Prior to joining DURA, Stephen served as the Tower Automotive North American CFO, a $1.6B manufacturer of engineered metal structures and complex welded assemblies for body and chassis. As a member of the North American leadership team, Stephen was responsible for the financial performance of critical program launches for key customers, including Ford, FCA and BMW. As North American CFO, Stephen managed the financial performance of the regions 14 plants and 5,700 employees in North America prior to the successful sale of Tower to Autokiniton.

Until 2017, Stephen was the corporate controller and global chief accounting officer at Nexteer Automotive, a $3.6B global Tier 1 manufacturer of electric power steering and driveline systems. In 2016 he served as Interim CFO representing the company with external stakeholders, including investors, analysts and credit ratings agencies. While at Nexteer, Stephen led the implementation of financial reporting systems, the design of a global enterprise risk management system and the establishment of a new corporate accounting, reporting and controls function.

Prior to joining Nexteer, Stephen was a partner with KPMG, based in Detroit. During his career, Stephen served as a national instructor, regional quality control leader and audit partner. From 2006 to 2008, Stephen completed an assignment in Asia Pacific as part of the firm’s Capital Markets group, focused on supporting the efficient execution of cross border capital markets transactions. From 1998 to 2002, he was assigned to KPMG Germany supporting key national accounts with SEC filing requirements.

Stephen is a certified public accountant (CPA) and a member of the Michigan Association of CPAs and the American Institute of CPAs. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.