The Sydney Power 100: The 100 most powerful people in Sydney 80-61
Three former prime ministers, a businessman with underworld ties, television bosses and a fashion icon make up the latest instalment in the search for Sydney’s most powerful. And we’re not even halfway through the list. The Daily Telegraph Sydney Power 100 has already set the power players guessing as we count down all week to reveal who really controls this city.
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Three former prime ministers, a businessman with underworld ties, television bosses and a fashion icon make up the latest instalment in the search for Sydney’s most powerful.
And we’re not even halfway through the list.
The Daily Telegraph Sydney Power 100 has already set the power players guessing as we count down all week to reveal who really controls this city.
80. Tony Abbott — Former prime minister
Even as a humble backbench MP, Tony Abbott remains one of the most influential politicians in the nation.
Colleagues call the former prime minister the “ideological compass” of the Liberal Party’s right wing.
One conservative told The Daily Telegraph: “He’s a thought leader, we turn to Tony for guidance.”
Opponents, inside and outside the party, fear and loathe him in equal measure for the intellectual muscle and combative energy the former Rhodes scholar and journalist displays in defending conservative values and tradition.
His ability to sniff weakness in opposing policy positions and cut through the white noise with voters allowed Abbott to lead the Coalition from the opposition wilderness to defeat an incumbent Labor government — one of only four Liberal leaders to achieve the feat.
They are qualities which ensure that, despite losing the prime ministership, Abbott remains an influential force in Australian politics.
It is because of this, the progressive left and GetUp! are trying so hard to oust him from the seat of Warringah at the next election.
79. Gai and Robbie Waterhouse — Thoroughbred trainer and businessman
Mention racing in Australia and one name dominates — Waterhouse.
Gai and Robbie Waterhouse are part of racing royalty, dominating on both sides of the track for decades.
Both are carrying on family traditions.
Gai took over the Tulloch Lodge stable of her training legend father Tommy J. Smith in 1994.
Robbie stepped into the shoes of his father Bill “King of the Bookies” Waterhouse.
Their marriage in 1980 united two powerful families with long and proud traditions in the sport of kings.
It is dealing with owners, the rich and powerful, the syndicates of millionaires, where Gai’s talent, charm and heritage come together in a potent mix.
She was granted her training licence in 1992, surviving turbulence over Robbie’s ban for his involvement in the Fine Cotton scandal, and since then they have quietly built an enormous contact book of influence.
Sit and watch their table at The Magic Millions yearling sales and you will see the rich, the powerful, media and politicians all stop by for a chat. Gai and Robbie know them all.
And the Waterhouse dynasty continues. Son Tom has stepped into his father’s bookmaker boots while daughter Kate has carved out a career in the media.
Gai has teamed up with former racing manager Adrian Bott to continue the stable’s winning edge.
78. Paul Anderson — Ten CEO
If Paul Anderson cast himself on Survivor island you’d have to rate him a pretty good chance.
After 16 years at Network Ten, including the past four in the boss’s chair, he’s seen plenty of challenges and he’s still on top.
But the jury is out on whether Survivor creator and global television giant CBS’s November 2018 takeover of Ten helps or hinders Anderson in the quest to get more eyeballs watching Ten.
“We feel like we’ve got a plan and we are giving it a red hot go,” Anderson says.
Ten burst out of the blocks weeks ahead of the official ratings season in January to program I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! against Nine’s Australian Open and the Big Bash League on Seven and Fox Sports.
“That proves what we’ve always known — that there’s a large chunk of the population that doesn’t want to watch sport,” Anderson says of the strong initial audience numbers for Celebrity, before people turned to the tennis finals.
“Our focus is to get our share as high as possible in the under 50s and arguably be No. 1 in that demographic and then create great TV that’s cost effective enough with our portfolio of programs to make a return.”
The third-ranking network almost stumbled into oblivion last year before the CBS deal.
“It’s not that a stream of funding has come in because we still have to pay our way. It gives us stability in that our owners are in exactly the same business as us so we are trying to achieve the same things as us. There’s a lot of leverage that we get out of that.”
Audiences should expect to see more CBS talent cross-promoted on Ten — just as The Bold and the Beautiful’s Katherine Kelly Lang lobbed onto Celebrity.
“There’s more content and technology and ideas that will feed into Australia because of their presence, which can only be a good thing.”
Anderson says the television industry needs more friendships like his with ex-rival television boss David Gyngell.
“It’s good to talk to people who just love TV and have an opinion that you value, irrespective of what side they’re on.”
Anderson says the television industry needs to get better at working together to fight competition from streaming services like Amazon and Netflix as well as digital giants Google and Facebook.
“Television in particular should work together, because we are not the enemy.”
77. Carla Zampatti — Fashion designer
The doyenne of Australian fashion, Carla Zampatti has blazed a trail for more than four decades and can count Princess Mary of Denmark, Dannii Minogue, Delta Goodrem and Dami Im as devotees.
But her reach goes well beyond fashion. She was the first female chair of public broadcaster SBS, champions women in business and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Wollongong.
Last year she launched a $25,000 annual award to give a fashion honours student at UTS the chance to study overseas.
Italian-born Zampatti had no such opportunity when she started her career in Sydney but she designed her own path to success.
“I was fortunate enough to find a job assisting the CEO of a small blouse company,” she told FBI Fashion College.
“I ended up taking over his design process as well as learning how the industry worked, where to buy fabrics, where to make the garments and who the buyers were.”
After opening her first shop in Surry Hills in 1972, created a name in well cut, fashion edge, luxurious garments and soon gained a following among the well-heeled of the eastern suburbs where she opened further stores in the next three years.
Her daughter, Bianca Spender, has stayed true to Zampatti’s design genius with her own, eponymous label.
Zampatti was honoured with the Companion of the Order of Australia in 2009, featured on postage stamps in 2005 and she diversified into perfumes in the 80s — long before the trend for designer scents were the thing to do.
76. Jim Masterton — Property developer
Jim Masterton’s first business was a fruit shop but he soon realised property and home building were where the money was at.
He founded Masterton Homes in 1962, and in the 57 years since the property developer has built more than 100,000 houses from Tea Gardens in the north of the state to Narooma in the south, as well as in the ACT.
The 89-year-old property legend, who resides in the western Sydney suburb of Denham Court, is thought to be worth up to $100 million.
For years his face graced television screens with his famous ad slogan “I’m Jim and I wouldn’t have it any other way”, cementing his place as one of Sydney’s biggest property tycoons.
Masterton said recently, building the house was only a small part of the job — you have to get the customer over the line first with the sale.
“There’s more in it than just the home. If they don’t like the hostess, or they don’t like the salesman, there’s no way you are going to sell the house,” he said.
“When you put a house up and, if the people don’t like the house, then there’s no way you are bloody going to sell it.”
“I am a great believer in travelling salesmen because I reckon if you can go to peoples’ homes and have a cup of coffee, you are halfway there.”
Masterton is married with four children, including son David who is chairman of the privately-owned family company, but he remains hands-on and can be seen at the company’s Warwick Farm headquarters pulling up a weed or pushing a wheelbarrow.
75. Cath O’Connor — Nova Entertainment CEO
When you find yourself groovin’ to the toons pushing the shopping trolley around Coles, you can thank Cath O’Connor.
O’Connor’s three decades in the radio game, half of that as boss of Nova Entertainment, has made her one of the most respected and feared executives in the industry, and given audiences innovations like Coles radio, broadcast in 800 stores.
Last year O’Connor kept the company’s smoothfm stations on top in the two markets that count: Sydney and Melbourne, and she is gnawing away at AM radio’s stranglehold of dominance over the ratings.
O’Connor has had to fight hard as one of the few female media executives in radio but her efforts have been recognised. She is a member of the Radio Hall of Fame.
74. Ronni Khan — OzHarvest founder
Getting Australia’s corporate bosses to a fundraising dinner is one thing. Getting them to do the cooking is quite another.
It’s testament to Ronni Kahn’s powers of persuasion that the OzHarvest CEO Cookoff has grown every year since its inception and this year expects to raise $3 million by teaming bosses with chefs to create a gourmet meal for more than 1,400 vulnerable Australians.
It’s the centrepiece of a charity business that has taken the simple concept of leftovers and supercharged it.
From an single van in 2004, she now has a fleet of trucks and other vehicles painted signature yellow that collect food from more than 3,500 supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, hotels, airports and outlets and then move it to more than 1,300 agencies who help feed people in need.
OzHarvest has delivered more than 96 million meals and has saved more than 33,000 tonnes of food from landfill, and has global expansion plans.
Kahn was born in South Africa and lived on a kibbutz for a long time before moving to Australia in 1998. She credits Nelson Mandela as one of her biggest inspirations in life.
She was the winner of the 2010 Australian Local Hero Award, and is regularly listed as one of the most influential women in the country.
73. Raelene Castle — Rugby Australia chief executive
When Australia made the bold pitch to host the 2021 women’s Rugby World Cup, Raelene Castle secured an unprecedented $10 million from the NSW and federal governments.
While the bid ultimately fell through due to political wrangling at World Rugby, it highlighted Castle’s increasing sway with the nation’s decision-makers, which is why the Rugby Australia chief executive is well placed to tackle the toughest job in Australian sport right now — bringing the code back from the brink of oblivion.
Years of infighting and backstabbing between the powerful states have left rugby on the precipice as the Wallabies and Super Rugby teams struggle for success.
Castle has gone a long way to mending those fractured relationships and plans to have a fully aligned program running in Australian rugby for the first time within weeks.
The 48-year-old is particularly well connected with influential women, having co-founded the Minerva network alongside some of Australia’s most powerful females.
She is also mentoring a number of young women including cricketer Alyssa Healy.
Castle lives with her partner of 12 years, Kiwi property investor Greg Jones, in Pyrmont.
72. Brian White — Ray White Group Real Estate chairman
Brian White was 31 when his father Alan called him into his office and announced he was quitting the real estate chain his family had built from scratch, and said: “It’s all yours now to run. Be a good leader,” and walked out.
Almost 50 years on, the Chairman of Ray White Group Real Estate, which sells $40 billion in property annually, is one of the nation’s most powerful men.
His vast industry experience means he has become a source of wise counsel to his colleagues and rivals alike.
He lives in a harbour front home in Point Piper with his wife Rosemary, where he entertains neighbours who include Malcolm Turnbull and Hungry Jack’s supremo Jack Cowin.
And his latest passion is rallying the real estate industry to take a lead role in the negative gearing debate in a bid to force Labor to scrap its tax policy.
“What is clear is that implementing radical policies in this arena don’t work and cause more harm than good,” he says.
71. Jane Lu — Showpo Founder
Less than a decade ago, Jane Lu ran her clothing start-up from her parents’ Sydney garage.
Fast forward to today and online fashion retailer Showpo ships to more than 100 countries, has a social media audience of 3.5 million people, and is on track to hit revenues of $100 million within 12 months.
Showpo opened its own warehouse and fulfilment centre last year, launched an app and increased its headcount from 40 to more than 110.
Lu also increased the women-focused brand’s offerings to include larger sizes for curvier bodies, diversified its product range and added depth to its categories.
“Our overarching goal is to reach $100 million in revenue by 2020 with no external funding, so in 2019 we’ll be focusing on growing our international footprint and extending our category offering,” she says.
“Always listening to our consumer, what she wants and focusing on how we can get it to her around the globe.”
Lu’s plain-speaking ways have endeared her to many of her customers, such as a mea culpa last year apologising for supply chain issues that made deliveries slow in an online video that went viral.
Lu says Sydney is a source of inspiration.
“What is there not to like! Sydney is such a great base for the Showpo brand, this is where our first very first customers came from,” she said.
“As much as I love to travel, and honestly, although it sounds so cliche, but having my people around brings out the best in me and some of my closest friends and family are here so this is where I can really ground myself.”
70. Lisa Havilah — Powerhouse Museum
Lisa Havilah has an extraordinary pedigree in championing the arts in Sydney and experience in running large cultural institutions which puts her in the prime seat for her next big job — the controversial move of the Powerhouse Museum to the city’s west.
Havilah, 47, was chosen to run the Powerhouse Museum late last year after a successful eight-year stint at the Carriageworks, Redfern, which she transformed into the fastest growing cultural precinct in Australia.
The arts mover and shaker had previously been director of the Campbelltown Arts Centre and an assistant director of Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and has a keen understanding of Sydney’s west.
When her appointment was announced, the president of the Museum of Applied Arts and Science (MAAS) board of trustees Professor Barney Glover described her as “a champion of NSW cultural life for many years”.
Havilah, who is married to artist/curator Glenn Barkley, studied painting and creative writing at art school and credits her upbringing for her interest in the arts.
“Mum was a ceramist, so I grew up in a combination of a farming-slash-artistic environment,” she says.
With Opposition Leader Michael Daley promising to keep the museum in Ultimo if he wins office in March, Havilah could find herself in the hot seat during 2019.
69. Elizabeth Ann Macgregor — Museum of Contemporary Art director
A one-woman tour de force, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor — or Liz Ann as she is more often known — saved the Museum of Contemporary Art when it had dire visitor numbers and was all but bankrupt.
Now the museum gets 1.1 million people a year through its doors — up from 100,000 when she took the helm nearly 20 years ago.
Macgregor not only transformed its fortunes — making the museum a globally recognised brand and one of the most significant art spaces in the southern hemisphere — she has established art programs in Western Sydney and across NSW, with a view to making art accessible to those who wouldn’t usually be exposed to it.
Her vision has always been to break down elitism and her push to bring on board corporate sponsors and remove the entrance fee was, arguably, the greatest step in saving the MCA.
Bright and well connected, Macgregor counts Sir Nicholas Serota from London’s Tate Museum as a mentor, and has Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, Telstra boss Andy Penn, Cathy Harris of Harris Farm Markets fame and Harvey Norman’s Katie Page on speed dial.
Her mantra could well be “if at first you don’t succeed …” and her drive, enthusiasm and joy in what she does has turned her into Australia’s first queen of arts.
68. Malcolm Turnbull — Former prime minister
He promised not to be a “miserable ghost” by hanging around like his predecessors but for many Liberals the baleful spirit of Malcolm Turnbull is all too apparent.
The naked power of the prime ministership may have been lost with August’s leadership vote, but Turnbull’s influence continues to be credited or blamed — depending on the allegiances of the observer — for the ensuing fallout.
His failure to campaign for the Liberal Party’s endorsed candidate in the Wentworth by-election caused by his resignation from parliament infuriated many and contributed to independent Kerryn Phelps’s victory.
Close confidantes have been linked with the conga line of progressive candidates lining up to take on former colleagues, including Turnbull’s conservative bete noire Tony Abbott.
Also infuriating Liberals was Turnbull’s effusive endorsement of disaffected ex-Liberal Julia Banks in taking on Health Minister Greg Hunt at the next election.
Turnbull has reportedly joined a lucrative US speaking circuit that will allow him to share his views with an international audience.
He is expected to earn as much as $104,000 per appearance.
But this is loose change for the former barrister turned banker with an estimated worth of about $200 million — a portion of which he used to bankroll the Liberal Party he led to a narrow victory in the last federal election campaign.
Money talks and the question many have is whether any of the Turnbull fortune will be employed in support of candidates at this year’s election — and if so, who?
Turnbull took his first step back into the political limelight this month to join his former staff member Bruce Notley-Smith on the NSW election hustings.
Notley-Smith is of the Liberal left and faces a battle to hold his marginal seat.
He is one Liberal who believes the former PM is better inside the tent than out.
67. Tim Worner — Seven West Media
Kerry Stokes is keen on pinging Seven boss Tim Worner late at night with a serve about some lame promo or show that needs the bullet.
Worner is not always in furious agreement with his $4.4 billion chairman, and our spies say he has been known to resurrect programs Stokes has killed and find them a decent audience under a deal with “frenemy” Netflix.
The pair also disagreed when Worner wanted to walk as the legal fallout from his affair with a Seven executive assistant hit the headlines.
Stokes wasn’t hearing any of it and turns out his instincts were spot on: Worner emerged from his annus horribilis in 2017 to clock up Seven’s 12th consecutive ratings win in 2018.
He presides over a beefed-up network of studios producing original content and has developed counterintuitive partnerships and digital investments in the likes of Airtasker to make more money from the eyeballs on the network’s screens.
He also, in partnership with Foxtel, stole the cricket from Nine and said ‘Seeya’ to the Australian Open Tennis after Tennis Australia demanded more money than he wanted to pay.
“There are three ingredients that make up the content lifeblood of Seven and sport is one of them, news is one and original entertainment is another,” Worner says.
Worner, who started out at Seven as a television producer, says creating original content is becoming increasingly important and that’s why Seven has production companies in London, LA and Auckland.
“I’ve heard a great saying: ‘Content is King-er than ever before.” It’s the foundation on which great media businesses are going to be built.”
Apart from Stokes, and his son Ryan Stokes, Worner has other secret other weapons in his armoury of sounding boards who inform his programming choices — his mates the plumber and the guy who makes prison security systems.
“They’re not really interested in what I do. Probably when they first met me they wouldn’t have had a clue what I did. They’re dads from the primary school. We go camping together.”
66. John Ibrahim — Businessman
Hanging on the wall of John Ibrahim’s Dover Heights mansion is a massive signed photograph of one of Australia’s most beloved prime ministers, Bob Hawke: “To John, Best wishes and a thank you kindly in regards to my family,” says the inscription.
Ibrahim is coy about what exactly the help might have been, but the photo’s presence hints at how far the former nightclub tsar has come in the past few years.
Ibrahim has divested himself of many the Kings Cross nightspots where he first came to prominence and is moving into more legitimate businesses, including buying at least five hotels.
And he’s ditched his entourage of body guards, led by Semi “Tongan Sam” Ngata.
These days he’s being invited to corporate boxes at the SCG where he rubs shoulders with the likes of Sydney Roosters boss Nick Politis, Mark Bouris and David Gyngell.
He is also known to lunch with media mogul John Singleton, and is mates with FM radio jock Kyle Sandilands.
Still, he remains tapped into Sydney’s underworld.
While no one really knows how much Ibrahim is worth, an investigation by The Daily Telegraph in 2017 estimated his property holdings alone are valued at more than $52 million and probably as much as twice that.
65. Michael Spence — University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor
Michael Spence has presided over this city’s most revered and oldest tertiary institution for a decade.
In that time the Vice-Chancellor has fought budget cuts, battled culture wars and managed the #metoo wave of change with class and control.
The university is at the cutting edge of research into new technologies and is building a $500 million, 25,000-student campus at Westmead which will focus on artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and data.
On this project Spence has also managed to secure the support of other universities, the Western Sydney University and the University of NSW.
Spence, who has a PhD in philosophy, is also an Anglican minister who, at 56, is father to a young family, in addition to the five children he had with his first wife Beth, who died of cancer in 2012.
He hopes his family will be his legacy rather than running his $2.4 billion tertiary education business with 67,000 students spread across 10 campuses.
“It would be nice to be a good Vice-Chancellor and I think I am not a bad one,” he says. “What I am as a husband and as a father — that counts.”
64. John Howard — former prime minister
Of all the voices offering Scott Morrison advice as he contemplates his government’s future, few would be as reassuring as John Howard’s.
“I talk regularly to the Prime Minister and strongly believe he can win the election, particularly on the strength of the Coalition’s economic credentials and the tendency of the Labor Party to wobble on border protection whenever any pressure is applied,” Howard says.
The Liberal hero, who is regarded by many conservatives as Australia’s greatest prime minister since Menzies, has kept a relatively low profile since the 2007 election ended his nearly 12 years in power.
But the man credited with capturing the mood of a generation of voters who became known as “Howard’s battlers” still commands influence as a Liberal elder statesman and loyal party servant, hitting the media spotlight and the hustings when it needs him, such as during last year’s Wentworth by-election where he still drew a crowd.
When the four-time election winner talks, the party still listens and Morrison and the Coalitions will he hoping he can still wield some of his magic with voters too.
63. Neil Perry — Celebrity chef and Rockpool Dining Group Head of Culinary
If Neil Perry has a guiding principle in the food business it is this: bite off more than you can chew and chomp away furiously.
Perry has been an industry leader since the mid-1980s when he opened his first restaurant Blue Water Grill at Bondi and pioneered Modern Australian cuisine, changing the way we thought about seafood.
Combining Asian flavours with chargrilling and buying produce direct from the producers, in this case individual fishermen, were innovations that found their way into his other restaurants such as the Rockpool chain.
It was his Rockpool in the Rocks that confirmed him as a rock star of the restaurant industry and one of Australia’s first celebrity chefs, instantly recognisable because of the ponytail that got him kicked out of high school.
Perry is now at the helm of several award-winning venues around the country, and his main role is Head of Culinary for the Rockpool Dining Group, having sold his empire to a private equity group for a price rumoured to be close to $100 million in 2016.
The group has 60 restaurants, feeds more than 10 million diners a year and rakes in about $300 million in revenue.
As the creative director of Qantas Flight Catering, Perry has designed the in-flight menus as well as the food served in Qantas lounges for 21 years.
He was also the key consultant for the $100 million transformation of David Jones’ food halls. Then there are a dozen or so cookbooks, the TV cooking shows and his charity work with the Starlight Children’s Foundation and OzHarvest.
All of which leads us back to Perry’s philosophy, summed up in a 2014 interview with The Australian: “I probably have always been really good at saying I could do something I wasn’t really ready to do, my whole life. Then you’ve got to work really hard.”
62. Ryan Stokes — Media heir and Seven Group Holdings CEO
He’s married to glamorous shoe heiress Claire Campbell and is the son of media baron Kerry Stokes but it’s his acumen for the business of oil, gas, and monster trucks that has won Ryan Stokes the respect of the top end of town.
In the boss’s chair at Seven Group Holdings since 2012, Stokes has made some bold moves, ramping up interests in industrial hire company Coates and selling down bits that weren’t making enough money, including the massive mining and industrial Cat trucks in China.
Like the company he runs, Stokes has diversified interests.
He’s just left a stint as chairman of the once stuffy institution of the National Library of Australia, where the 42-year-old won government funding help for a massive project called Trove to make the library’s world-class resources accessible to all online.
He also donated $1 million of his family’s money for National Library research fellowships. Last year he was appointed chairman of The National Gallery of Australia.
He and wife Campbell are weeks away from becoming first-time parents, and live in a $16 million Darling Point mansion.
61. Barney Glover — Western Sydney University Vice-Chancellor and President
Barney Glover’s influence today will echo through Australia’s future.
The Vice-Chancellor and President of Western Sydney University oversees a student body of 45,000, 65 per cent of whom are the first in their family to attend university and more than 30 per cent of whom don’t speak English at home.
Giving opportunities to students from disadvantaged backgrounds is part of his drive, as is backing a pragmatic, problem-solving approach to their studies that breaks down the barriers of strict disciplines.
Many of his students, he notes, will find their way into public service or politics.
“Universities perform an essential role in society. We must stand up for the truth because if we don’t, who will?”
Glover works closely with the Chancellor, Professor Peter Shergold, a former Australian public service CEO and secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet under John Howard.
Together they make a formidable team and are passionate advocates for the power of universities and the students they educate to shape the future.
► WEDNESDAY: Sydney’s Power 100 — 60 to 41
► THURSDAY: Sydney’s Power 100 — 40 to 21
► FRIDAY: Sydney’s Power 100 — 20 to 1
— Additional reporting: Matthew Benns, Janet Fife-Yeomans, Rose Brennan, Jonathon Moran, Anna Caldwell, Fatima Kdouh, Edward Boyd, Sheradyn Holderhead, Danielle Le Messurier, Jonathan Chancellor, Mark Morri, Julian Linden, Fiona Wingett, Lydia Pedrana and Paul Crawley.
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