ROLF GOMES, 41, CARDIOLOGIST

AFTER gaining his medical degree from the University of Queensland in 2002, this father-of-three says becoming a heart specialist was the “right fit” with his background in electrical engineering. “I was drawn to cardiology because, in a sense, the heart is a muscular pump, it’s got plumbing and electrics,” Gomes says. “It made a lot of intuitive sense to me.” Determined to break the tyranny of distance for rural patients, Gomes is behind a $1.5 million, custom-designed cardiac clinic-on-wheels that is taking heart services to the state’s south-west. Gomes, who was born in Kolkata, India, and came to Australia with his p arents as a nine-year-old, says he wants to give back to the country that provided opportunities for his family. Janelle Miles

SKYE ANDERTON, 35, JEWELLERY DESIGNER

AS A 15-year-old, Anderton dreamed of having her own business. At 18, she started designing and selling jewellery and handbags at markets. Now, after years working as a fashion buyer and product developer, the mother-of-two runs Ruby Olive, named after her 85-year-old grandmother. Anderton designs all pieces and supplies to about 150 retailers. With a double degree in business and arts from Queensland University of Technology, she launched a second jewellery and accessory business, Lola & Gem, in 2012 and was named Young Business Woman of Year at this year’s Telstra Queensland Women’s Business Awards. Next, “I want to increase product lines and expand overseas,” she says. Elissa Lawrence

PATRICK CLAIR, 32, GRAPHIC DESIGNER

BRISBANE graphic designer Clair received international attention this year when he won a Creative Arts Emmy award in Los Angeles. He was victorious in the category of Outstanding Main Title Design for his striking work on the opening credits of HBO drama True Detective. An alumnus of St Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace, QUT and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, Clair created the work entirely from a Sydney studio. Now based in LA, he is a creative director of Santa Monica design studio Elastic, which has clients including HBO, Marvel, Adidas and MTV. He is also working on director Michael Mann’s upcoming film, Blackhat. “My hope is to bring more entertainment projects back to Australian shores,” he says. EL

BEN HUNT, 24, RUGBY LEAGUE PLAYER

HUNT, from the tiny town of Dingo, 148km west of Rockhampton, hit the big time this year in the big smoke of Brisbane with the Broncos. Having warmed the utility bench for years, the versatile half was finally given a permanent spot and made the most of it. By year’s end he finished top five in the Dally M count, won Broncos Player of the Year, and made his debut in the Australian squad, scoring one try and setting up another. Hunt began his career with the Blackwater Crushers, but caught the eye of talent scouts playing for his school, St Brendan’s in Yeppoon, on the Central Queensland coast. (He was often pitted against a young Daly Cherry-Evans of St Patrick’s, Mackay.) Hunt was spotted as a 13-year-old by master coach Wayne Bennett, and signed to the Broncos. With Bennett back at the club, and Hunt in stellar form, 2015 could be his biggest year yet. Matthew Condon

KERRIE HESS, 35, ILLUSTRATOR

SHE’S worked with some of the world’s most esteemed fashion houses, brands and magazines: Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Kate Spade New York, Collette Dinnigan, Net-a-Porter, Vogue, Tatler and Harper’s Bazaar. Hess, of Hawthorne in East Brisbane, also recently illustrated windows for London’s Harrods and billboards for department store Printemps in Paris. Next year she takes on Lancôme Paris, French patisserie brand Ladurée Paris and will hold her third solo art exhibition at Brisbane’s Red Sea Gallery. Hess studied graphic design at Griffith University and, while a layout artist for London newspaper The Independent, had an illustration published in the paper’s weekend magazine and her illustrating career was born. Hess has lived in London, Hong Kong and Paris but returned to Brisbane in 2012 with her son, Marcel, 6. She says while she will “always say yes to billboards in Paris”, she is enjoying turning her attention to creating original artworks. EL

HOSAM ZOWAWI, 30, CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGIST

ONE of five winners internationally of a Rolex Young Laureate award this year for his work into antibiotic-resistant superbugs, Zowawi is in the final stages of his PhD at UQ. Under the guidance of world-renowned infectious diseases specialist Professor David Paterson, the scientist is working on a rapid diagnostic test for superbugs, designed to ensure patients are treated quickly with the most appropriate antibiotics. Zowawi’s work has also focused on the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the Middle Eastern Gulf states. “The overuse of antibiotics is fuelling anti-microbial resistance,” he says. “In the Gulf region, some pharmacists sell antibiotics without prescription. People with colds or flu turn up at a pharmacy and purchase an antibiotic as if they’re purchasing paracetamol. They harm not only themselves but they’re also helping to create superbugs that could harm the whole community.” Named by Time magazine this month as a Next Generation Leader, Zowawi has also recently been made one of the Queensland Government Science Champions. The Merchant Charitable Foundation has awarded him a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship with UQ’s Centre for Clinical Research. JM

MITCHELL JOHNSON 33, CRICKETER

THE 2014 ICC Cricketer of the Year has reshaped the sport ... and he’s not finished yet. The fast bowler who poleaxed England and South Africa earlier this year is so intent on keeping his foot on the throat of his rivals that he knocked back sponsorship offers in the off-season. Johnson has two big targets over the next year – the World Cup 50-over tournament in Australia and New Zealand in February-March, then an Ashes Test series in England – and if he can maintain the freight-train momentum of the past year he will carve a path of destruction through both events. Is he a Queenslander? Of course he is. While Johnson may live in Perth, he was raised in Townsville, blossomed in Brisbane and is signed on with the Brisbane Heat for this season’s Big Bash. Robert Craddock

MIA WOODRUFF, 34, MEDICAL RESEARCHER

THE future for Woodruff is one where tissue and organs can be custom-made to improve the quality of life for birth defect, cancer and trauma sufferers. Born in Yorkshire, England, Woodruff immigrated six years ago and now leads a research team – the Biomaterials and Tissue Morphology Group at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, QUT – which is pioneering 3D printing of human body parts. The research allows “scaffolds” to be printed that are made from bio-compatible materials which eventually dissolve in the body after tissue has grown back. Last year, Woodruff was a winner of the Australian Institute of Policy and Science’s Tall Poppy Campaign that celebrates intellectual and scientific excellence. She says she is “driven by the need to ease human suffering”. EL

ALLAN ENGLISH, 59, PHILANTHROPIST

THIS Brisbane businessman is Australia’s Philanthropy Leader of the Year. The father-of-three worked in hospitality before starting his own equipment business, Silver Chef, in 1986. In 2000 he made his first major donation to Opportunity International and in 2001 set up its Queensland office. In 2010, he launched the English Family Foundation, which aims to fund a million people out of poverty by 2020 (current tally 358,000). Each year, 40 per cent of funding goes to international poverty alleviation and 40 per cent to Queensland projects, totalling about $2m in 2014. English is chairman of the Funding Network, is on the board of School for Social Entrepreneurs and Karuna Hospice, and serves on the advisory board for QUT’s the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Non Profit Studies. Leanne Edmistone

PAUL FAIRWEATHER, 55, ARCHITECT, CREATIVE CONSULTANT

The co-founder of Queensland’s award-winning Fairweather Proberts Architects has spent the past five years concentrating on his “creative catalyst” side: advising businesses on innovation and creativity through his Idaes consultancy, as well as co-facilitating TEDxBrisbane, an offshoot of the US-based think tank TED Talks. When Fairweather wasn’t painting (he was a 2001 Archibald Prize finalist), he was helping Queensland Ballet and Brisbane Powerhouse (among others) think outside the box. Now, having re-hung his architect’s shingle, he’s collaborating with Anthony Jemmott on the $100m apartment complex, Opera, in South Brisbane. Next? “More adventures in the whirligig world of ideas, creativity and design,” he says. Susan Johnson

KAREN SPILLER, 55, PRINCIPAL

SPILLER has been inspiring students and teachers for decades, most recently during her 15-year tenure as principal of St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School at Corinda, in Brisbane’s west. Last year the school was one of two in Queensland recognised for its science education program via the Peter Doherty Award for Excellence in Science. Its Year 3 students have topped the state’s NAPLAN results for the past two years. “Every job has its challenges but in education you know you’re part of something bigger than yourself,” says Spiller, who is treasurer of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools and next October will assume the chair’s role. She is also vice-president of Independent Schools Queensland. Brittany Vonow

GRACE SIMMONS, 18, MODEL

“IT’S surreal,” says Simmons, on the line from New York where she’s on a modelling job after spending much of the year in Paris, strutting catwalks for Dior, Valentino and Yves St Laurent. “I’ve always been interested in modelling but thought it was a pipedream,” adds Simmons, who graduated with an OP3 in 2013 from Stuartholme School in Brisbane’s inner-west Toowong. Enrolment in a double degree in economics and commerce at UQ has been deferred while the eldest child of hardware store owners Blain and Adrienne travels the world. “In March I was in Tokyo on a two-month contract; it was a nice stepping stone to Europe, where I did haute couture shows for Dior and Viktor and Rolf in Paris in July and for YSL in the spring/summer shows in September. Modelling has also taken me to London, so I feel incredibly lucky.” Simmons, who won the Girlfriend model search in 2012, plans to return home to Pullenvale, in Brisbane’s west, for Christmas before jetting back to her Parisian base: “Europe is the best market for my look and I do really well there.” Kylie Lang

WILL POWER, 33, INDYCAR DRIVER

TOOWOOMBA-born IndyCar Series champion Power learnt to race on dirt tracks in the Queensland bush, and later on Granite Belt raceways at Warwick and Stanthorpe. Now based in the US as a member of Team Penske, he has raced for Formula Ford, Formula Holden, Australian Formula 3, V8 Supercar and British Formula 3. Among his other talents, Power was part of the voice cast of 2013 animated feature film Turbo. EL

DAVID STAVANGER, 41, POET, PERFORMER, PRODUCER

STAVANGER publishes award-winning poetry under his given name, and as alter ego Ghostboy. He won the 2005 Performance Poetry World Cup, and was the inaugural Lord Mayor’s Reader-in-Residence at Brisbane Square Library last year. The ex-psychologist founded the state arm of Australian Poetry Slam and was recently appointed co-director of the Queensland Poetry Festival for 2015 with his partner, Anne-Marie Te Whiu. SJ

JULIEANNE ALROE, 59, CEO, BRISBANE AIRPORT CORPORATION

ALTHOUGH her high school forte was economics rather than engineering, Alroe has spent most of her 30-plus-year career in airport management. Previously heading up Sydney Airport, Alroe took over the BAC in July 2009 and is overseeing the $1.3b second runway, one of the nation’s biggest infrastructure projects. She won the 2014 Lord Mayor’s Business Person of the Year Award and sits on the board of Queensland Theatre Company. Leisa Scott

BRUCE WOLFE, 61, ARCHITECT

AS MD of Conrad Gargett Riddel Ancher Mortlock Woolley, Wolfe has overseen some of Queensland’s most innovative building projects. He led the team working on the $1.4b Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital, which won the 2013 International Academy of Design and Health Award for best future hospital. The finished building boasts exceptional natural light and access to greenery. “We wanted the kids, families and carers to feel like they’re walking into a place of life and energy,” he says. Heritage is Wolfe’s other passion: CGRAMW will continue to oversee conservation work on Canberra’s Parliament House as well as a UN project to refurbish Africa Hall in Ethiopia. SJ

JAMES McCARTHY, 55, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST

McCARTHY is head of the infectious disease program at Brisbane’s QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, where he developed his world-first system of testing new anti-malaria drugs in human volunteers. His team has carried out 13 preliminary trials of drugs to control malaria, which kills up to a million people worldwide annually. McCarthy was recently granted $1.5m a year over four years by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to further his work. “I’m motivated to make a difference to the health of people with little access to modern treatments, but some of the drugs we’re working on will help Australian travellers as well,” he says. JM

KARA COOK, 29, LAWYER

AFTER surgery to remove a melanoma two years ago, Cook moved from private family law practice to become principal solicitor with the Women’s Legal Service Queensland. Named on last year’s YWCA 125 Leading Queensland Women list, she this year won the 2014 Australian Young Lawyer Individual Award for her focus on disadvantaged people, particularly victims of domestic violence. Now a new mother, Cook says she loves her job and feels rewarded every day. The removal of a second melanoma last year reaffirmed her resolve. “I’ve taken action to make my own life better and help others. If I did die tomorrow, at least I’ve done what I can while I’m here.” LE

TOM ROCKLIFF, 24, AFL PLAYER

THIS year, Rockliff came of age as an elite AFL midfielder. With 101 senior games to his credit, he was awarded his second Brisbane Lions Merrett-Murray medal (also in 2011) as the club’s best and fairest. Rockliff was named in the 2014 All-Australian Team – the first time a Brisbane Lion has been selected since former captain Jonathan Brown in 2009 – and was picked in the Australian team for the International Rules match against Ireland in Perth last Saturday. Born in Lismore, northern NSW, and raised in Benalla, rural Victoria, Rockliff played for the Murray Bushrangers Under 18s before he was drafted by the Lions in 2008. His dream is to one day captain the Lions to premiership glory. EL

GREG DENNIS, 45, DAIRY FARMER

SINCE introducing a robotic milking machine to the family dairy farm at Tamrookum, near Beaudesert, in 2010, Dennis has found that Holstein cows like to keep odd hours. Some milk at midnight, some at midday, and some three times a day after being freed from the regimen of early morning and early evening milkings, which were driven historically by a farmer’s need to meet the milk truck. A strong opponent of dairy deregulation, Dennis cut ties with all big milk companies and now processes and markets his milk to about 180 outlets as Scenic Rim 4Real Milk. His grief over the changes in the dairy industry led to depression, which he talks about openly in a bid to help others. In September, he was named Australian Dairy Farmer of the Year. LS

SHEPPARD, MUSICIANS

IT’S been a big year for this Brisbane sextet, with Sheppard siblings Amy, 24, George, 27, and Emma, 21, joined by Jason Bovino, 25, Michael Butler, 24, and Dean Gordon, 25. Their song Geronimo is 2014’s highest-selling Australian single and has gone top 10 in more than a dozen countries. Sheppard had seven nominations in last week’s ARIA Awards, ending the night winners, and their debut album, Bombs Away, has gone gold in Australia. Noel Mengel

PETER CORKE, 55, ROBOTICS PROFESSOR

DUX of his high school in Castlemaine, Victoria, Corke is now Professor of Robotics and Control at QUT’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and internationally recognised for his work in robotic vision. He’s heading up the new ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision, “hiring the smartest people we can find, anywhere in the world” to help solve the problem of how to make robots see as well as humans do. SJ

MATT McKAY, 31, FOOTBALLER

THE Brisbane Roar star’s decision to return home to Queensland after mixed fortunes with clubs in Scotland, South Korea and China has paid off. The midfielder celebrated his second premiership-championship with the Roar in May, also sealing a place in Australia’s 2014 World Cup squad, of which he was arguably the Socceroos’ best performer in two matches. Off the field, McKay has been named an ambassador for the Asian Cup in January. Marco

Monteverde

JESSE RICHARDSON, 36, EDUCATOR, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

GLOBALLY renowned, award-winning advertising creative Richardson jokes he’s quit the trade to use his “powers for good”. His first free educational resource, yourlogicalfallacyis.com/, drew more than 3.7 million visitors. Now he’s launched schoolofthought.org, an online school using the power of creativity to teach independent thinking. “It’s educating the next generation to think for themselves,” Richardson says. SJ

HETTY JOHNSTON, 56, CHILD PROTECTION ADVOCATE

THE 2015 Queenslander of the Year, Johnston aims to make Australia the safest place to raise children by 2020. She founded Bravehearts in 1997 to “educate, empower and protect Australian kids from sexual assault” and now operates in four states and employs more than 70 staff. Johnston, AM, is part of the federal government working party on cyber safety, and an adviser to the Queensland Child Protection Commission of Inquiry. EL

STEVE DUNN, 40, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

DUNN, design director of Dunn + Moran landscape architects at South Brisbane and an acknowledged leader in his field, is passionate about how cities such as Brisbane will respond to growing population densities in the future and how vital it will be to provide sustainable green spaces. Among his latest work is the grounds of the multimillion-dollar development The Highgate, in the city’s inner-south Highgate Hill. Wendy Hughes

SARAH OLSON, 42, NEUROSURGEON

OLSON grew up in the small New Zealand town of Hokitika, in the South Island, where she learnt the piano. As a child, she recalls one of her mother’s friends saying, prophetically: “With hands like those you should be a concert pianist or a brain surgeon.” “Sometimes I joke and say, ‘Well, the piano didn’t work out so here I am’,” the now Brisbane-based neurosurgeon says. Olson is behind a fundraising push to set up a state brain tumour bank to supply samples to researchers studying the disease, donating some of her own money towards the cause. Only 10 per cent of patients diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most deadly form of brain cancer, are still alive five years after diagnosis. “I want to try my best to see a change in this disease. If I achieve that by the time I retire, I’d think it was a worthwhile career.” JM

NEIL CARRINGTON, 52, CEO, ACT FOR KIDS

AFTER three years counselling abused children and on the eve of becoming a father, Carrington decided to change jobs before the heartbreaking work took its toll on him. Twenty-odd years later, he’s back in the field, trying to prevent abuse and raise funds to give victims the best support and therapy. “It was a bit of a stone in my shoe that I felt I needed to go back and help those kids,” he says. With him, he brought the benefit of five university degrees in education and psychology, including two master’s and a PhD, and experience as the director of the Australian Council for Educational Research’s leadership centre and director of teaching and learning at QUT. He is sought after on the speakers’ circuit and was the Harvard Club of Australia Fellow for 2012-13. LS

JOE ANDON, 26, ENTREPRENEUR

BRISBANE bayside dweller Andon has carved out a global niche for himself redesigning a backyard favourite and bouncing it back into fashion. Andon launched Vuly Trampolines in 2007 with his savings and a loan from his parents. “What we did was take a category that already existed and innovate it.” He says the past 24 months have been “full on” for his company, which has opened an office in California and struck deals to roll out Vuly trampolines in the US and the Middle East. Vuly is now on track to sell more than 100,000 units a year, with a projected turnover of $50m in 2015 – not bad for a Palestinian child who emigrated to Australia with his family when he was three. “If you’re naturally good at something, you want to keep working to get better,” Andon says. Anthony Gough

JASON CLARKE, 45, ACTOR

A BREAKOUT role as a CIA interrogator in the Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty in 2012 saw Clarke consolidate his Hollywood stature with a lead role in one of this year’s blockbusters, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The Winton-born son of a sheep shearer also stars as Abraham Lincoln’s father, Tom, with Diane Kruger in 2014’s Sundance Festival hit The Better Angels. The late bloomer, who credits a role in 2006 TV series Brotherhood as a life-changer, hits the big league next year with lead roles in three highly anticipated films: Child 44, with Tom Hardy; as New Zealander Rob Hall in 3D adventure thriller Everest, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal; and taking on cult character John Connor in the fifth instalment of the Schwarzenegger franchise, Terminator: Genisys. Fiona Purdon

ALEX HARRIS, 51, KOALA ACTIVIST

IT struck Harris as odd that despite its iconic status, data about the koala’s population spread was patchy and not nationally coordinated. The real estate agent from Noosa took action when she learned this lack of data was one of the reasons the marsupial had not been listed as endangered. “I really do believe it is on the way out and we can’t afford to let that happen,” says Harris. The population mapping project, KoalaTracker, was born in 2010, encouraging citizen scientists to record koala sightings – alive, injured or dead – across the country. The data has been made available to councils and developers in a bid to preserve habitat. “From an economic and cultural standpoint, it would just be the greatest shame on Australia to lose the koala,” Harris says. LS

NAOMI PRICE, 31, CABARET STAR, COMEDIAN, SINGER

THIS year was a cracker for English-born Price, the talented artist capable of channelling both British singer Adele and American twerker Miley Cyrus. In March, Rumour Has It: Sixty Minutes Inside Adele won Best Musical or Cabaret at the Matilda Awards, and next July a revamped version will feature as part of Queensland Theatre Company’s season. This year saw Price tick off a few items on her bucket list: she performed with former Split Enz leader Tim Finn at the launch of QTC’s 2015 season (Finn’s musical, Ladies In Black, opens next November) as well as with trumpeter James Morrison (at Nine’s Telethon for Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital). Price lives in the northern Brisbane suburb of Chermside with 2013 The Voice runner-up Luke Kennedy, 32. “This year I’ve taken huge steps in my performance career but more importantly in my personal life. I feel happier than I’ve ever felt. I feel more free, more honest. I’m happy being me,” she says. Who knew that by donning a fat suit and letting out her inner-London loudmouth, Price would become more herself? SJ

FIONA REILLY, 45, DOCTOR, FOOD WRITER

THE Mandarin-speaking Reilly is starting a new job as an emergency physician at Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital at South Brisbane, but intends to keep moonlighting as an award-winning travel and food writer with specialist knowledge of Chinese dumplings. “I can now say with conviction that China is the most exciting country on the planet,” says the author of a travel memoir about her family’s pioneering trip through China by campervan. Reilly’s Chinese love affair began four years ago when husband Matt Tobin, also 45, principal of public art company Urban Art Projects, was transferred to Shanghai. Reilly and the couple’s two daughters followed. Reilly’s memoir created a buzz at last month’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Watch this space. SJ

KRISTINA OLSSON, 57, AUTHOR

OLSSON’S award-winning memoir, Boy, Lost (University of Queensland Press), propelled her into the first rank of Australia’s writers. A former full-time journalist, the Brisbane-based author collected a swag of awards for last year’s heartbreaking memoir about her late mother being forced to give up her baby son, Peter. The Kibble Prize, two Premier’s Awards (Western Australia and NSW) and the Queensland Literary Award for non-fiction earned Olsson not just financial rewards and literary kudos, but also lots of new readers. “Apart from the recognition of peers via prizes, I’ve been overwhelmed by messages and comments from readers about what they took from the book,” she says. “It feels like it has a life of its own now.” SJ

PHILIP HUGENHOLTZ, 46, MICROBIOLOGIST

HUGENHOLTZ sees a future in healthcare where patients will have their gut bacteria profiled as part of routine medical practice to detect early signs of disease. The UQ-based scientist is involved in a worldwide project that profiles faecal samples with the aim of establishing a database that will allow researchers to contrast the micro-organisms in healthy guts with those of people who have chronic disease. The project may also pave the way for radical new treatments to change the bacterial profile of a person’s gut. In collaboration with University of Newcastle (NSW) researchers, Hugenholtz is already studying faecal transplants in mice as a potential therapy for pulmonary disease. In 2012, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. JM

BLANK REALM, MUSICIANS

BRISBANE’S Blank Realm is the little band that roared, with rave reviews around the globe for its recordings and a reputation as one of Australia’s most explosive live bands. The band features Spencer siblings Daniel, 35, Luke 33, and Sarah, 31, with guitarist Luke Walsh, 31. They came together fired by their mutual love for ’60s psychedelica and ’70s Krautrock. This year’s Grassed Inn album brought their songwriting smarts into sharper focus and won them many new fans on a 20-date European tour, including a set at famed British rock festival Glastonbury. Says Daniel Spencer: “When we started playing live we were part of an improvisational thing, you would get people critiquing you afterwards. It didn’t suit us that much. We learnt to play better, so now it’s writing songs that interests us.” NM

NIKKI BOWLING, 30, & BEC BOWLING, 26, FASHION DESIGNERS

IN 2010, Brisbane sisters Nikki and Bec Bowling had newborn daughters a couple of months apart. Despite having no sewing experience, they began making clothes for their girls and were soon inundated with requests from others. They started a business, Lacey Lane, for girls from newborn to five years, and employed three local machinists to keep up with demand. By mid-last year, production increased to about 500 pieces a week with an Indonesian manufacturer but the range still sold out “within minutes’’ of being listed on their website. Last month, they upped the ante with a Chinese manufacturing deal delivering 80,000 pieces expected to sell out in about four months. Plans for the business include a shopfront and a “tween” range. EL

THOMAS LARKIN, 28, ACTOR

BRISBANE actor Larkin’s big break was playing Horatio in Hamlet in 2010. He went on to play Marc Antony in 2011, also at La Boite, was Romeo in QTC’s 2012 production of Romeo and Juliet, then was cast in QTC’s hit Macbeth this year. The versatile Larkin also produced and starred in Sex with Strangers by Laura Eason at Brisbane Powerhouse. His interest in theatre began as a student at St Joseph’s College, Gregory Terrace, though he planned to study physiotherapy after finishing school. But he deferred, took a gap year and enrolled at Melbourne’s prestigious Victorian College of the Arts. After graduating, he did some independent theatre and then headed back north. “I came back to Brisbane so I could be a bigger fish in a smaller pond,” Larkin says with refreshing honesty. Phil Brown

JONNY DURAND, 34, HANG-GLIDER PILOT

HE’S broken and dislocated a collarbone and elbow and bunged up his knee so badly it needed a reconstruction, but those injuries were from skateboarding and motorbikes. “No injuries from hang-gliding,” the globetrotting adrenalin junkie jokes. “That’s a safe sport; the others you spend way too much time close to the ground.” This year Durand, from Beechmont in the Gold Coast hinterland, set two world records in the sport he came to love while watching hang-gliders jump off the cliffs near his mountain primary school. In February, he reached speeds of almost 110km/h as he broke the record for quickest 300km out-and-return and the quickest 100km out-and-return – all done in the majestic setting of the Great Australian Bight. Next year in Mexico, Durand hopes to elevate his world ranking from number two to number one at the world championships. LS

RAJIV KHANNA, 52, IMMUNOLOGIST

KHANNA, originally from Chandigarh in northern India, is harnessing the body’s immune system to fight disease. After 24 years at Brisbane’s QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, he’s recognised as a world leader in the development of treatments for brain, throat and blood cancers, and more recently, multiple sclerosis. Khanna’s therapies are based on immune cells, known as “killer T cells”, which play a key role in controlling infections. He isolates these cells from a person’s blood and grows them in the laboratory before they are infused back into the patient. His treatment was first used in the late 1990s on a lung transplant patient who had developed lymphoma. “My goal is to make Queensland the hub of immunotherapy, not just for Australia but for the Asia-Pacific,” Khanna says. JM

ANNE CROSS, 61, CEO, UNITINGCARE QUEENSLAND

CROSS is in charge of hospitals, aged care and community services facilities on 400 sites in Queensland and the Northern Territory. She leads a team of 15,000 staff and 9000 volunteers spanning the UnitingCare group (the Wesley and St Andrew’s hospitals in Brisbane), Blue Care, UnitingCare Community (including Lifeline) and the NT’s Australian Regional and Remote Community Services. Cross was appointed in 2003 to merge the Uniting Church’s health and community service operations. This year, she was named Telstra Queensland Business Woman of the Year and state winner for the government and community category. “I care about the wellbeing of people and communities and am driven by the contribution not-for-profit organisations make to the social and economic life of Australia,” she says. EL

CATHERINE O’SULLIVAN, 53, BOND UNIVERSITY PRO VICE CHANCELLOR

GROWING up in the Granite Belt town of Stanthorpe as the youngest of six, Sullivan was the first in her family to finish Year 12 and achieve a university education. Then, after nearly 20 years’ teaching, she became principal at Goondiwindi State High School in 2000 where she developed the state’s first-ever rural training and technology centre. In 2002, Sullivan was named overall winner of the Queensland Telstra Business Woman of the Year award, the only principal to receive the honour. In her current role she is passionate about developing strategies in the key areas of indigenous issues, women’s leadership and sport, and is leading the drive in domestic and international recruitment initiatives. She has also joined the judging team for the Telstra Business Awards. BV

RYAN PRESLEY, 27, ARTIST

IT was his extraordinary watercolour paintings of Australian bank notes that first drew attention to Presley’s art. The series, entitled Blood Money, is ongoing with paintings featuring people he figured should be on the various denominations … people such as land rights champion Vincent Lingiari, or Aboriginal warrior Pemulwuy. Presley, whose father is Aboriginal (from the Northern Territory, where he was born) and whose mother’s family is Scandinavian, pushes the envelope and his startling prints featuring sharks in police uniforms mark him as a stirrer. This year he exhibited in a major show of indigenous Queensland art, Saltwater Country, which debuted at Gold Coast City Art Gallery and will be seen next in the US and The Netherlands. PB

ELLEN VAN NEERVEN, 24, WRITER

BORN in Brisbane, of Murri and Dutch heritage, van Neerven grew up in a bookish household and her literary talents were noticed by teachers at her northern suburban high school. She went on to win the prestigious David Unaipon Award for an unpublished indigenous writer in the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards. That work, Heat and Light (UQP), a collection of short stories, was published to acclaim this year. “It started as one short story and it grew from there,” she says. The book was also inspired by the landscape of south-east Queensland’s Scenic Rim – Yugambeh, traditional home to her people. She now works as a book editor for the State Library’s black&write! Program, which supports and promotes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers, and is also writing a novel.MC

JOSUE LOPEZ, 30, EXECUTIVE CHEF

GOMA’s Harvest, a showcase of food in art and film that opened in June, put the spotlight on Lopez as he crafted clever dishes to reflect the political and sustainability themes of the exhibition. He honed his craft in the test kitchen of Copenhagen’s famed NOMA restaurant before taking up the GoMA role in 2012 and has quickly built a reputation for his own edible art. Lopez, who moved to Brisbane from El Salvador with his family when he was two, has put the GoMA restaurant at the top of Brisbane’s fine dining ladder, winning this year’s Savour Australia Restaurant and Catering Hostplus Awards for Excellence for a formal contemporary Australian restaurant. Earlier this month, he created a feast from local ingredients for the G20 leaders’ dinner at GoMA. SR

MICHAEL SHELLEY, 30, MARATHON RUNNER

THE Gold Coast’s Michael Shelley beat the much-vaunted east Africans to become Australia’s first marathon gold medallist in 20 years at this year’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games. The former Helensvale State High School student had won a silver medal at the Delhi Commonwealth Games four years earlier. In Glasgow he was even stronger, refusing to buy into the surges made by his Kenyan and Tanzanian rivals, and eventually ran over them for a breakthrough win. When Shelley applies himself, it is always for a reason. Even when he was flattened by injuries, he turned his rehabilitation into a staged mission and completed a Bachelor of Business degree at Griffith University in 2011. “I couldn’t run for three months, so I needed something to take me away,” Shelley says. DAMIEN STANNARD

MELANIE ZANETTI, 29, ACTOR

THIS former student of Brisbane’s All Hallows’ School is hot property on stage and screen. Zanetti divides her time between Los Angeles and Brisbane and was lured home for shake and stir theatre co’s production of Wuthering Heights this year. She looks young for her age, which caused a ruckus in 2012 when she appeared in a poster for QTC’s production of Romeo and Juliet, smooching fellow rising star Thomas Larkin. Zanetti, who has appeared in television series including The Strip and East of Everything, also had a role in the 2013 feature film Tracks and played opposite Dolph Lundgren in Battle of the Damned that same year. She recently wrapped her role in a suspense thriller, The Contents, shot in the southern Brisbane suburb of Tarragindi. PB

SALLY PITKIN, 54, BUSINESSWOMAN

A HIGH-FLYER who spends more of her life on planes than in her native Brisbane, Pitkin has built a career around making connections. “I’ve got a portfolio of roles that span different industries and sectors, all with different challenges and all at different stages of evolution,” she says. The lawyer turned full-time board member is a non-executive director of Super Retail Group, Billabong, Echo Entertainment Ltd and Opera Queensland, and holds many other positions and roles. She says she prefers building state-based businesses than working interstate. “We’ve got great minds and great professionals in Queensland, and great companies too,” says Pitkin, who became state president of the Australian Institute of Company Directors last month. AG

TERRY DEEN, 31, TEACHER

DEEN is keen to share the knowledge he gained in the US as this year’s Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Fellow. A design, visual art and English teacher at Kelvin Grove State College in inner Brisbane, he spent 14 weeks in New York. The fellowship, funded by the state government, allowed Deen – a former teacher in Biloela, Central Queensland – to work at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, a branch of Washington DC’s famed Smithsonian Institution. Deen says he wants to increase ties between the Cooper-Hewitt and Brisbane’s Asia Pacific Design Library (at the State Library) with online design lesson plan swaps. “My goal is for my fellowship to have an impact statewide,” he says. “Aside from benefit to my students, the bigger picture is what I can give back to the teaching community.” EL

DAMIAN GRIFFITHS, 42, ENTREPRENEUR

AT the vanguard of the hospitality revitalisation of Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, the former Dalby boy turned immigration lawyer turned entrepreneur and restaurateur is not one to rest on his laurels. After opening the boutique Limes Hotel in 2008, Griffiths bought the old Queenslanders next door and crafted them into hip hangout Alfred & Constance, before expanding his empire to the adjacent Alfredo’s Pizzeria and Kwan Bros, then developing the Chester Street Kitchen in Newstead. In January he’s opening Doughnut Time in Alfredo’s. What’s next? With the help of Spanish über interior designer Lazaro Rosa-Violan, he’s transforming a former bicycle service depot in Wickham St into a multi-level venue incorporating restaurants, bars, a nightclub and boutique hotel. The building – “it has 6m ceilings and timber rafters, like something from New York’s Tribeca”, says Griffiths – will be known as the Speedwell, after the popular vintage bike brand. He has also signed long leases on neighbouring buildings and plans to develop them into characterful restaurants and bars. Expect these to roll out next year and Speedwell to follow in 2016. ALISON WALSH

###