Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page talks Gerry Harvey, Singo, horses

Dynamo Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page lifts the lid on what makes her and partner Gerry Harvey such a formidable team - and what are the keys to success.

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KATIE Page was still a teenager when she first came across larrikin Sydney go-getter mates, Gerry Harvey and famed ad man John ‘Singo’ Singleton.

It was in the 1970s and Ms Page – now the Harvey Norman CEO – was 19.

“They were both very successful men about town and I didn’t actually go and work with Gerry until I was 25 and he had just started Harvey Norman – just opened a store and needed someone there to help. He phoned me.

Katie Page Harvey at 19 at The Star, Broadbeach. Picture: Richard Gosling.

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“Because it was one store it was fantastic – we did everything. We were buying for all the categories, doing the marketing, the property. So then, you know, workplace romances happened.”

Asked if she and Gerry had always liked each other, she replies: “Actually no. It wasn’t until we worked together that we realised we were simpatico and that we were going to be this great team.

“And, y’know, we were sitting there, we went to the races and that was it.”

Long before they were a couple or worked together on the first fledgling Harvey Norman franchise, they had met when an ambitious young Ms Page did an IQ test for charity and Mr Harvey happened to be a judge.

Katie Page and Gerry Harvey at the Magic Millions race day. Picture: Luke Marsden.

“I beat Gerry. And he said ‘Well that’s because it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and my brain is better in the morning’.”

Their successful dynamic is often apparent, especially when the Sydney-based pair – who count their much-loved Gold Coast as a second home – come for the Magic Millions yearling racehorse sale each January.

It is another project to soar under their stewardship and Ms Page’s vision to turn it into a fortnight long carnival. It is now among the social highlights of the year and one of Australia’s richest race days.

Katie Page Harvey (middle) in conversation with Tamika Smith (right) and Criena Gerhke (left) at 19 at The Star. Picture: Richard Gosling.

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They married in 1988 and have two children together – and Ms Page reflects on then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s infamous 2018 ban on relationships between staffers and MPs in Federal Parliament, dubbed the “bonk ban”.

“When you hear people like Malcolm Turnbull calling for ‘bonking bans’ in the office, Gerry and I look at each other and say ‘Gosh, how many people would never have met, right.

“Like most of the people at Harvey Norman, News Limited. I could give you the list. I mean how ridiculous, oh my gosh.”

As well as a passion for Harvey Norman, she says they also share a love of horses.

“It was Gerry and Singo that taught me the love of horses.

“I didn’t come from a family that knew anything about horses. We were paddock riders, brumbies in the back paddock – not race horses.

“It’s quite different. One of my first jobs was a dispersal sale for Singo and Gerry – that was back in the mid-80s, so they threw me in the deep end.

“Singo had a breakfast show on sports radio at the time.

“Once a week he and I would talk about horses and what horses were running that weekend.

“They both taught me, which was so amazing because all those years later the three of us bought Magic Millions,” she says.

The trio took on the sale in 1996, which at the time was limping along very much in second place behind the annual Inglis family-run yearling auction.

“By that time I had a fair idea what I was doing. Magic Millions has been the great love of our life.

“Nothing ever beats Harvey Norman – that has been just extraordinary.

“But to have this other business, Magic Millions, which we do privately, to also be this successful and so international – not just in Australia – it’s come from us being passionate about both,” she says.