They juggle busy lives, while also raising families, but remain powerful figures of industry.

In the last of The Courier-Mail/Qweekend’s five-part series – meet five of the state’s 25 most powerful and influential couples in business, politics, media, philanthropy, and travel.

They explain how they inspire each other on the way to the top.

REID & GILES

CATHIE REID & STUART GILES

Icon Group Founders

Stuart Giles and Cathie Reid, both 50, are one of the wealthiest couples in Queensland and they have all the trappings that reflect their hard work and good fortune.

She drives a $300,000 BMW and they live with their two children in a riverside home at Indooroopilly, which includes a climate-controlled wardrobe for Cathie’s designer clothes and shoes.

READ ALL FIVE PARTS OF THE SERIES BELOW

But it hasn’t always been smoothly sailing; the pair facing one of their lowest moments during the global financial crisis of 2008.

With their fledgling health business Epic Pharmacy struggling, they were close to bringing down the curtain on the operation.

“It was an incredibly challenging period,” Stuart recalls.

“We were struggling to meet interest payments and keep the door open.”

He says one of the things that helped clear his head at the time was running.

Stuart, who went on to complete five of the world’s major marathons, credits wife, Cathie, for allowing him to have that “sanity break” when they not only had business challenges but a young family to support.

Queensland’s top 25 power couples: Part One

Queensland’s top 25 power couples — part two

Queensland’s top 25 power couples — part three

Queensland’s top 25 power couples: part four

Queensland’s top 25 power couples — part five

A decade on, Stuart still runs marathons, the business is thriving and he has decided it’s Cathie’s time for adventure.

A few years ago, a Virgin Galactic ticket appeared under the Christmas tree with Cathie’s name on it and following a rigorous training regimen she is set to become one of the world’s first space tourists along with Sir Richard Branson.

“It will be all about supporting Cathie now as she prepares for the flight,” he says.

Whether building a billion-dollar pharmacy and cancer treatment business or travelling the world in search of adventure, the two are a formidable team.

They met in a Melbourne laneway while studying pharmaceutical science at Monash University in the late 1980s.

The daughter of a power station fitter and turner, Cathie was born and raised in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, while Stuart grew up in Ringwood, an outer-eastern suburb of Melbourne.

After working in the pharmacy sector for a period, the couple started buying up hospital pharmacies around Queensland.

Those acquisitions formed the foundation of the business that eventually became Icon Group, which now runs cancer clinics and pharmacies throughout Australia and Asia.

“The biggest risk we’ve taken was in starting out,” Cathie says.

“Stuart and I left secure, well-paid roles to follow our vision.

“We literally put everything on the line with our first business via a second mortgage on our own home.”

Two years ago, a consortium, including QIC and Goldman Sachs, purchased a majority stake in Icon for more than $1 billion.

Both Cathie and Stuart remain on the board of Icon Group with Cathie serving as digital adviser and Stuart as chairman.

Cancer care is close to Cathie’s heart, with her father’s life cut short at 56 from lung cancer.

Cathie says the couple complement each other.

“Stuart and I have worked together for over 20 years now, and don’t know anything different,” she says.

“We got engaged on the Wednesday and bought our first pharmacy the following week and have worked together ever since.

“We’ve got very different but very complementary skills, which we’ve always recognised and played to.

Stuart’s very strategic and loves deal making – mergers and acquisitions have always been his thing, I’m more operational and process focused.”

With their international travel and big work schedules, Cathie and Stuart have relied on nannies to help at home with Sascha and Sam, now aged 17 and 15.

“There’s been plenty of times over the years when things have got out of kilter, and that’s when you have to sit down and reset your priorities – clearly the kids always come first, but they also understand that the work that we do is important,” Cathie says.

“My father passed away from mesothelioma (asbestos-induced lung cancer) when Sascha was just a baby, so the impact that cancer can have is very close to home for us.

“That adage that if you love what you do, you never work a day in life is also true; we’re still genuinely excited about the opportunities ahead and that definitely makes it very easy to stay motivated.”

THE TURNERS

GRAHAM “SKROO” TURNER – Flight Centre CEO

JUDE TURNER – Spicers Retreats founder

You’d be hard-pressed to find another Australian couple pumping as much time and cash into our love of travel as Graham and Jude Turner.

They are the Brisbane power couple behind global juggernaut Flight Centre Travel Group and luxury boutique chain Spicers Retreats.

Born from small bus tour company Topdeck, Flight Centre has grown to a $4.2 billion travel behemoth, of which Graham, known as “Skroo”, 70, is the major shareholder, with 14,000 staff all over the world and roots in Brisbane.

Spicers, founded by Jude, 66, is Australia’s largest chain of luxury accommodation, with a $70 million portfolio of nine retreats across Queensland and NSW.

While Flight Centre’s cross-continent reach and Spicers’ expansion regularly keeps the Turners away from home, they remain quintessential Queenslanders, with a home in Brisbane and a unit at Noosa.

Jude was raised near Warwick, while Graham grew up on an apple orchard near Stanthorpe.

They met in 1971 when Graham asked Jude on a date while they were studying at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.

She said no, delaying their first date almost five years when fate would lead Jude into the young entrepreneur’s first Topdeck travel shop in the UK, which Graham co-founded with his mates Geoff Lomas and Bill James.

Jude temporarily worked in the Topdeck office before leaving on a planned trip across Europe.

Graham was so smitten with Jude, he took over as the bus driver for the trip.

Three months later he proposed and they married in Brisbane that December.

Fast-forward more than 40 years, and the entrepreneurs would be considered among Queensland’s most generous philanthropists, donating millions to environmental causes close to their hearts.

Their two children, Matthew, 38, and Joanne, 35, have followed their star parents into the business world.

Matthew is the founder and managing director of 99 Bikes, which opened its first store in Milton in 2007 and has grown to boast 46 locations across Australia.

Joanne moved to London in 2012 and runs successful activewear company LNDR.

The Turners have a penchant for environmental sustainability and Australian flora and fauna.

Together they have created 5500ha of nature refuge areas in south-east Queensland.

In 2017 the couple donated or pledged more than $20 million, including $18.5 million for a joint venture with the University of Queensland, to open a conservation centre to breed, rehabilitate and release rare and endangered native wildlife in the Scenic Rim.

Other causes regularly supported by the Turners include Bush Heritage Australia, which buys land with high natural value, and the Sustainable Australia movement, which wants to cut migration.

THE FAIRFAXES

TIM FAIRFAX & GINA FAIRFAX

Philanthropists

They don’t seek publicity but Tim and Gina Fairfax have been in the public eye recently.

In the world of philanthropy they are a dynamic duo and while Gina is usually at pains to credit her husband as the force behind the
Tim Fairfax Family Foundation, it is a family affair.

The Fairfaxes set up their foundation just over a decade ago to support rural, regional and remote communities of Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Over the past decade the foundation has given $31 million to arts, community and education initiatives with a focus on encouraging diversity, supporting leadership and strengthening the community sector through collaboration between private and public sectors.

Gina Fairfax is on various boards including the board of trustees at QAGOMA.

In 2018 the Fairfaxes (Tim is part of the Fairfax dynasty) were awarded the Creative Partnerships Australia award for Philanthropy Leadership, an acknowledgment of their significant and enduring legacy to the arts in Australia.

Tim Fairfax has served as QUT Chancellor for seven years and will step down in late December. He is also president of the QAGOMA Foundation.

Both love the arts but they are anything but pretentious about that.

They have a down-to-earth manner – maybe because they spent many years running a cattle station in Central Queensland.

They live in Brisbane, have been married for 42 years and they have four daughters and 15 grandchildren. The secret of their togetherness?

“I suppose there’s a certain mateship we share,” Gina says.

“We do things together and we are interested in the same things.

“We loved living in the country but now we love living in Brisbane and enjoying the arts. We’re very fortunate.”

JONES & CRONIN

KATE JONES – Minister for Innovation, Tourism Industry Development and Cross River Rail

PAUL CRONIN Aurizon head of corporate affairs

Kate Jones and Paul Cronin met in the halls of Queensland’s Parliament House in the early 2000s when she worked for then-treasurer David Hamill and he was working for then-deputy premier Terry Mackenroth.

A friendship developed during the redevelopment of Suncorp Stadium, by which time Kate was working for Public Works Minister Robert Schwarten, and the pair began dating in 2005. The next year, she entered parliament at the age of 27 while Paul was promoted to be premier Peter Beattie’s principal spin doctor.

He briefly worked for premier Anna Bligh before moving to Queensland Rail as general manager of police and corporate affairs, later going on to work for Aurizon.

That same year, the Ashgrove MP was elevated to Cabinet as environment minister and the pair also tied the knot at Red Hill’s St Brigid’s Church.

Kate lost her Ashgrove seat during the 2012 wipe-out of Anna Bligh’s government. Recontesting the seat in 2015, she became a king-slayer when the Palaszczuk Government swept to power and she relegated Campbell Newman to being just the second premier in the state’s history to lose his seat.

Now the Minister for Innovation, Tourism Industry Development and Cross River Rail, she is the fourth most senior member of the Palaszczuk Government and head of Labor’s Old Guard faction. Paul remains at Aurizon as head of corporate affairs.

THE SCURRAHS

PAUL SCURRAH Virgin Australia CEO

NICOLE SCURRAH PwC Consultant

When one partner has been chief of staff to a premier and the other has run railways, ports and an airline, dinner-table debates over who has the most important job are hotly contested.

The pendulum of influence has swung between Nicole (former premier Anna Bligh’s chief-of-staff) and Paul (current Virgin Australia boss) while they’ve climbed their respective political and corporate ladders and through it all they have managed their unofficial responsibilities as parents to Meagan, 30, and Cameron, 19.

It hasn’t been easy.

In late 2010 Queensland braced for what would become a horror summer of floods and cyclones. Nicole, 49, was Bligh’s right-hand woman, while Paul, 51, was trying to keep the trains running on time as Queensland Rail boss.

Both jobs intruded on family life.

“Even though I was on call 24 hours a day at QR, the job was a lot more stable and predictable for me so I could manage my schedule around the family,” he says.

So as her husband juggled family and railway timetables, she was assisting in directing the state’s largest natural disaster recovery in decades during the Brisbane floods.

That even included making up the spare bed for Bligh one night during the height of Brisbane’s flood so the premier could grab a few restless hours of sleep while her own house was under threat.

“In a job like that when something big is happening, it never stops and often you can’t get away from it,” she says.

Paul says his wife is “unflappable and has the ability to ensure emotion doesn’t get in the way of good decision making”.

“She also has the capacity to take on an enormous workload without getting stressed.”

Another key to reducing stress and allowing both to simultaneously chase their career goals was hiring nannies to cover the inevitable gaps in their schedules.

Nicole says a good nanny became “like family” during the work week but adds they always made sure at least one parent was around on weekends.

They never mapped out grand career plans in concert or divvied up the home chores, allowing events to dictate their moves.

“If an opportunity came up for one of us, we made those decisions as a collective,” Nicole says.

The strategy has worked well as they’ve risen to the top of their chosen fields, moving through the most gilded boardrooms and offices in Queensland and beyond.

Paul moved from QR to its sister freight company Aurizon before heading to Sydney for four years to run stevedoring giant DP World Australia.

He returned to Brisbane earlier this year when he was handed the controls of Virgin Australia. He has set about turning around the fortunes of the country’s second biggest airline by cutting costs, slashing jobs and chopping unprofitable routes in a bid to return the company to profitability after seven years.

Nicole’s connections in Queensland politics remain strong and she has been leading a team at consultancy firm PwC charged with finding $1.7 billion in savings over the next five years for the Queensland Government.

Her boss on that project, Treasurer Jackie Trad, replaced Bligh as member for South Brisbane.

With their children living overseas the couple are making the most of guilt-free late nights in the office, working longer hours than ever.