Influential people: Lower north shore, part 3
THIS week we reveal the third round of our countdown of the 20 most influential people on the lower north shore, with numbers 6-10. Let us know what you think.
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- Lower north shore’s top influential people, part 2
- Lower north shore’s top influential people, part 1
THIS week we reveal the third round of our countdown of the 20 most influential people on the lower north shore. With so many amazing and successful people calling our area home, compiling this list has been a tough but inspiring exercise. Here are numbers 6-10. Check it out and let us know if you agree or not.
6 NEIL BALNAVES, BUSINESSMAN AND PHILANTHROPIST
The founder of international television, production and distribution company Southern Star — where he was responsible for local drama hits such as Water Rats, Police Rescue and Big Brother — Mosman resident Balnaves is just as well known for his generosity and love of the arts as he is for his business acumen. Balnaves’ life changed in 2002 when he narrowly avoided death after a boating accident on the Gold Coast. “How many more houses do I need?,” he pondered during his long rehabilitation. “Do I want the jet plane? Do I want another yacht? Not really. There comes a time when those things stop meaning so much to you.” The Balnaves Foundation has now given away in excess of $20 million, with Kirribilli’s Ensemble Theatre and the Mosman Art Gallery both grateful local recipients of his family’s generosity.
7 TRAVERS DUNCAN, MINING MAGNATE
Even among the well-moneyed set on Mosman’s ‘Golden Mile’, the chairman of the ASX-listed White Energy Corporation is a standout high flyer. Duncan, who was ranked Australia’s 98th richest person in last year’s Australian Financial Review Rich List with a worth estimated at $670 million, is a local property mogul — with recent acquisitions worth $15.35 million giving him local landholdings totalling 2800 sqm. He also owns a south coast housing subdivision, cattle properties in Queensland, ski lodges in NSW and student residence buildings in Sydney.
8 LISA WILKINSON, TV PERSONALITY
The effervescent former women’s magazine editor, who is domiciled in Neutral Bay with newspaper columnist and writer hubby Peter FitzSimons, made front page news across the country late last year when she defected from Channel 9’s breakfast program Today to the rival Ten Network’s news show The Project. ‘I break up with Today’ was the memorable headline in The Daily Telegraph. Wilkinson’s star seems to have dimmed slightly at her new home but she made a powerful statement for pay parity in the media and beyond when it was revealed her move was in part because executives had valued her below Today co-host Karl Stefanovic.
9 JOHN KINGHORN, BUSINESSMAN
The founder of the RAMS Home Loan company has been a recent mover in the Mosman property market, putting his waterfront mansion on the market and ‘downsizing’ to a $10.22 million Mosman Bay penthouse with wife Jill. Kinghorn made $650 million from the sale of his holdings in RAMS just before the GFC decimated local markets in 2007. In 2018, he and John McGuigan made about $150 million when the doughnut chain Krispy Kreme was re-sold to its American parent company. But life is not totally rosy, with Kinghorn currently defending allegations that he defrauded the Australian Taxation Office of $30 million.
10 KIM MCKAY, AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM DIRECTOR
A proud Mosman resident, McKay co-founded the Clean Up Australia movement, worked for National Geographic and was awarded an AO for her dedication to the environment before she was handed the reins of the Australian Museum in 2014. Under her watch, the museum has embarked on an ambitious multimillion-dollar transformation project and the galleries have been reworked from top to bottom. “My goal is to leave the legacy of setting the museum up for the next 100 years of existence. And to make sure Sydney has a world class natural history and culture museum,” she told the Daily in 2017.