‘Feared, respected and disliked’: The private powerbroker who has Lachlan Murdoch’s ear

This story is part of the October 25 edition of Good Weekend.See all 14 stories.

One of the most notable events on Sydney’s social calendar is held annually at Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch’s grand Georgian-style home, Le Manoir, with its panoramic views of Sydney Harbour from exclusive Bellevue Hill, in the heart of the city’s affluent eastern suburbs. The palatial pile is the setting for a Christmas party with a guest list that reliably fills gossip columns, punctuated with a parade of boldface names from the upper echelons of business, politics and entertainment.

Who’s in with the Murdoch empire in Australia can be assessed by spotting who glides down the lengthy driveway of the former French consulate. Last year’s attendees included some of the top local News Corp brass such as executive chair Michael Miller, current and former editors Col Allan and Ben English, along with NSW Premier Chris Minns, then federal opposition leader Peter Dutton, Telstra CEO Vicki Brady, Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht and former Sony Music chief Denis Handlin. It’s a tradition established by Lachlan’s father, Rupert Murdoch, whose own annual gathering of the rich and influential in the UK has consistently provided a very potent, very public demonstration of power.

But there is another party in Australia which commands a guest list similarly heaving with well-connected heavyweights without the Harbour City publicity. Taking place in genteel Toorak of the more understated Melbourne, tall hedges guard a renovated Old English home with a thyme lawn and glass-fenced pool where guests converge for an annual bash hosted by Murdoch powerbroker Siobhan McKenna.

At McKenna’s party last year, gracing the perfectly trimmed grass were Sky News boss Paul Whittaker, Fox Sports chief Steve Crawley, veteran News Corp editor Peter Blunden and Sky’s Victorian “After Dark” stars Andrew Bolt and Peta Credlin. Others included the ABC’s Ali Moore, Australian Ballet chair Richard Dammery, former federal treasurer and Goldman Sachs boss Josh Frydenberg, former Victorian Liberal MP Katie Allen and – in the biggest sign of McKenna’s increasing clout, a surprise guest – Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The event, much like McKenna herself, has always flown very much under the radar. Until now. Throughout an intensive, years-long battle over the future of Rupert Murdoch’s global media business – pitting Lachlan Murdoch against his siblings – McKenna emerged as a key figure in securing victory for father and son, ensuring Lachlan’s control of their empire.

Officially, McKenna, 53, holds the position of chief executive of broadcasting for News Corp in Australia, but as News Corp commentator Andrew Bolt noted in 2020, she is “actually more than that”. She has a deep history with Lachlan Murdoch, having worked closely, but unobtrusively, with him for two decades, and has been described as being his right-hand woman, corporate consigliere or most trusted lieutenant. So who is this quiet achiever at the heart of a succession battle for the ages?

A ruthless family fight

Over several years, Lachlan had become increasingly paranoid about the possibility he would be turfed out of the company by his siblings the day Rupert eventually died. Lachlan had made attempts dating to 2019 to buy out his three oldest siblings – James, Elisabeth and Prudence – but these were not considered to be serious, perceived as “lowball valuations” on their shareholdings, a source with knowledge of the offers said. (The best of those lowballs is understood to have been about 60 per cent of their market value or about $US1.3 billion in total, when Fox shares were trading at about half their 2025 price.)

With no deal, the paranoia remained, and in 2023, Lachlan turned to McKenna, asking her to devise a plan to try to wrest control of the company without paying a cent. She hired Nevada estate law firm Solomon Dwiggins Freer & Steadman, who homed in on a “Top Hat” clause in the trust that allowed Rupert to change its terms if it could be argued that he was acting in “good faith”. If successful, the strategy – dubbed Project Family Harmony – would secure Lachlan as successor, installing a profitable, conservative voice to head the family companies, meaning everyone would benefit financially.

Lachlan Murdoch arrives, with his wife Sarah, for a probate court hearing in Nevada last September.Credit: The New York Times

In February this year, it emerged, in articles in The Atlantic and The New York Times, that McKenna was the architect of not only Project Family Harmony but also the “Top Hat” amendment, which in essence would hand Lachlan a veto on all matters relating to the family empire. “McKenna also started to look into whether it might be possible not just to play defence against a sibling coup,” the NYT wrote, “but to go on offence.”

Flanked by Lachlan, McKenna presented the plans to Rupert in September 2023 on the Fox Studio lot in Los Angeles, which they had kept in a $US71 billion sale to Disney in 2019. It was a plan fit for Rupert, one of history’s most merciless businessmen, in its ruthlessness to cut off Lachlan’s three oldest siblings’ power. He endorsed it, essentially placing the legacy of the company he spent decades building in McKenna’s hands. She even drafted talking points for Rupert for when he was to inform the others of the planned amendment.

Ultimately the swing fell far short, with probate commissioner Edmund J. Gorman jnr saying Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch had acted in “bad faith”, calling the plan a “carefully crafted charade” to cement Lachlan’s control, in his judgment of December 7, 2024. Former colleagues say the strategy was indicative of McKenna’s strengths – and weaknesses. A take-no-prisoners
approach can sometimes make her inflexible, and an eagerness to be cunning can result in over-complicated plans which ultimately backfire.

“With Siobhan, there’s often very solid theoretical perspectives rather than practical perspectives,” says a former boardroom colleague. “She’s Machiavellian. She can be too clever in terms of overthinking and thinking that everybody behaves in the way in which she does. Because she is so political, she assumes everyone else is.”

There was speculation in Australia that McKenna would pay a price for what happened in Nevada, too, but as one observer noted, she had “put enough cookies in the jar to take a few out”.

In February this year, Rupert and Lachlan found a new avenue to explore with their lawyers, arguing that James being interviewed by The Atlantic – offering up details and insights on the sealed case – should be cause for a new trial. They had also filed an appeal by this point and the judge, Lynne Jones, called for oral arguments, meaning December’s ruling wasn’t final and all hope was not lost. In September, a deal was announced that cemented Lachlan Murdoch’s control of the family empire, putting to rest any question of succession after the patriarch’s death.

McKenna was, by all accounts, integral to the outcome of the case. It is not often a Murdoch has been indebted to someone who doesn’t share that name. But McKenna is, at this point, the closest thing to being an honorary Murdoch.

A promising young woman

McKenna and her husband, James Flintoft, a prominent Melbourne board director and former ANZ executive, have three children, all of whom have been school captains at the elite boys’ school, Melbourne Grammar. But unlike Lachlan, who grew up on New York’s Upper East Side in extreme wealth and privilege, McKenna comes from far humbler beginnings. Born in Canberra in 1972 to a public servant father and a nurse mother, McKenna hit the ground running as an ANU graduate, joining the Australian arm of global consulting firm McKinsey.

While her star was rising in the mid-1990s, McKenna met two people who would change the course of her life. One was future husband Flintoft, and the other would introduce her to Lachlan Murdoch. American Kate Harbin, McKenna’s flatmate in Sydney, was also Lachlan’s fiancee after the pair had met at Princeton.

Siobhan McKenna with her husband James Flintoft at the 2021 Australian Open, Melbourne.Credit: Louis Trerise

As with many young romances, Lachlan and Kate’s engagement fizzled and they parted ways, with Harbin heading back to the US, but McKenna had already made an impression. She was also charging full steam ahead with her career and was made McKinsey’s second-youngest partner ever globally at 29, later completing a master’s of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, specialising in international relations. It was several more years before she and Lachlan Murdoch would begin the business relationship which would prove defining for them both.

In 2005, Lachlan headed back to Australia from New York with model wife Sarah, having lost a power struggle with his father’s loyal lieutenant Roger Ailes, then boss of Fox News. (Ailes had gone behind/above Lachlan to get Rupert to overrule a Lachlan programming decision. When push came to shove, Rupert chose proven loyalty over blood.)

Lachlan, 33 and back in Sydney, was ready to build something of his own with his private investment company, Illyria. Taking a leaf out of his father’s playbook, he began assembling his team – and convinced McKenna to leave McKinsey. Her harder edge and the remarkable success she had already achieved without familial assistance would provide him with the attributes and experience he needed to complement his own acumen and skills. It helped that in 2007, the Murdoch children were each handed $150 million in News Corp shares in return for agreeing to change the structure of the tightly held family trust to financially include Rupert’s younger children, Grace and Chloe, from his marriage to Wendi Deng.

The Teflon puppeteer

Illyria became the crucible of McKenna and Lachlan’s working relationship. Put simply, they made a good team, with McKenna more than willing to get her hands dirty when Lachlan would not. “She doesn’t mind conflict. In fact, she thrives on conflict, whereas he doesn’t,” a former close colleague says. “Part of their relationship is he’s able to rely on her to take care of things.”

Illyria’s first successful media investment in 2009 was modest by Murdoch standards: a 9 per cent stake in Prime Media Group for $16 million. This was closely followed by a controlling 50 per cent stake in DMG Media – later rebranded as Nova Entertainment – for $110 million. McKenna and Murdoch would quickly turn Nova, an underperforming third-placed player in Australian radio, into a formidable and profitable company, bringing energy and a start-up mindset, executives from the time say. There were big moves, including the rebranding of Smooth FM which ultimately was highly successful and proved financially savvy.

In the early years, Nova’s top brass would travel for strategy sessions to the Murdoch farm at Cavan, a merino wool station in NSW on 20,000 hectares that has been in the family since the 1960s. There was plenty such generosity during that time, says Cathy O’Connor, Nova chief executive from 2008 to 2020, while another executive from this period adds, “if you can gain [McKenna’s] trust and prove yourself, she is incredibly supportive”.

But while Nova (with which both are still engaged) has been a success for Lachlan Murdoch and McKenna, Illyria’s purchase of a stake in Network 10 was an entirely different experience. A complication with sacking an old chief executive, hiring a new one and appointing an interim figure was just the beginning of a chaotic era of firings, cost-cutting and short-term financial metrics, a handful of senior executives from that period in Ten’s history say. Still, McKenna established herself as a permanent fixture in the company’s offices and was Lachlan’s “eyes and ears”, another former executive says. The place was “swarming with consultants”, one adds, and she would join the board in mid-2012.

They also made a series of strategic missteps, including passing up AFL broadcast rights in 2011 only to then miss out on NRL broadcasting rights. Despite these “crippling decisions”, as described by one senior sales executive at the network at the time, McKenna’s relationship with Murdoch remained strong. An executive who worked closely with McKenna adds that she was essential in all of Illyria’s successful investments: “She’s the Teflon person who never got pinned with anything, was never public in anything and was basically the puppeteer.”

On balance, despite the failures, the success of Nova and a couple of other canny investments – such as striking gold on an early stake in Uber – meant Lachlan could now be considered a successful businessman in his own right, in no small part thanks to McKenna. “He’s made a lot of money out of [Nova], and I think he owes a lot of that to her,” says a former executive associated with Illyria. “In Lachlan’s world, he’s a billionaire in his own right,” says another Murdoch watcher, “and she enabled that.”

It was at this point that Rupert Murdoch came calling and Lachlan, the “first among equals” who had proved himself away from the family company, returned to News Corp in 2014. With the Murdoch empire under siege following the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, he was ready to help his father out. In 2017, with Lachlan now overseeing News Corp’s Australian operations, McKenna was appointed to a sprawling position overseeing Foxtel and Fox Sports – and Sky News Australia, which had recently been purchased by the company.

It’s rare for an outsider to come into News Corp already at the top, but by this point, Lachlan was untouchable. The companies McKenna was tasked with overseeing, meanwhile, were distressed, with strategic turnarounds needed.

Sky, Kayo and AFL

Since then, McKenna has only strengthened her hand with the Murdochs, nurturing and revitalising News Corp’s crown jewels in Australia. She played a key role in the merger of Fox Sports and Foxtel, as well as securing a massive increase in funding from Foxtel to Sky News.

Almost immediately, there were major changes. Fox Sports boss Patrick Delany was appointed chief executive of the combined Foxtel, while Sky’s long-time chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos made way for The Australian editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker. “[McKenna] was quite instrumental in ensuring Sky was paid enough money from Foxtel so it could go and grow and build that business,” says a senior News Corp executive. The deal gave Whittaker the funds to beef up Sky, expanding its “After Dark” line-up and implementing a News Corp-style campaigning approach.

The News Corp takeover was complete.

McKenna, who started working from Sky’s offices in Melbourne several days of the week, brought an air of “mahogany row” to the network that had prided itself on a rough-and-tumble culture. She was noted, for instance, for drinking exclusively from a fine china tea set.

‘The first thing I would say about Siobhan is that she’s clinically logical. Having her as a chairman is like having McKinsey permanently on board.’

Fox Sports boss Patrick Delany

“The first thing I would say about Siobhan is that she’s clinically logical,” says Delany, who reported to McKenna as Foxtel chief executive for seven years until the company’s sale earlier this year. Immediately, she helped Delany push the idea of Kayo, a new sports streaming platform, with News Corp HQ. It was not only a good idea, but absolutely necessary from a revenue perspective, Delany says. Later, they followed Kayo with streaming service Binge. Says Delany: “Having her as a chairman is like having McKinsey permanently on board.”

A major test came in 2022, when Foxtel was trying to retain its most important broadcast deal: AFL. McKenna had clearly learnt the lesson of a decade earlier. Even more so than for Ten, retaining the AFL was critical for Foxtel’s survival. What resulted was a mammoth deal, the largest in Australian media history. Foxtel and Seven would pay $4.5 billion over seven years, with Foxtel paying the lion’s share.

Weeks later at an AFL grand final event, league boss Gillon McLachlan took time to shout out his broadcast partners, thanking the Murdochs and both Delany and McKenna, joking, “I know it hurt, Siobhan.”

McKenna in 2022 with (from left) Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany and then AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan, following a record $4.5 billion broadcast deal.Credit: Getty

“No one likes being forced to their outer limits,” McLachlan says three years later. “But Siobhan’s one of the greatest competitors. That’s what I respect about her.”

By now, McKenna was a known corporate fixer inside News Corp and a figure within the local operations who dwarfed her colleagues. When news of a merger between News Corp and Fox Corp was broken by The Wall Street Journal in 2022, not a single Australian executive was clued in on the plan, aside from McKenna.

McKenna’s successes for News Corp – much as at Illyria – seem to have outweighed any losses from doomed ventures such as news streaming service Flash and the later, much more expensive disaster, Apple TV copycat Hubbl.

The Foxtel turnaround is testament to the trust McKenna built with the Murdochs over the years, says Delany, and over that period she was central to bringing the News Corp companies Foxtel, Sky and the newspaper divisions closer together.

“She delivers. I think in business that’s the true test, and the only test of a long relationship. These days in the media, there’s no guaranteed licence to exist,” Delany says. “Inside any relationship between a proprietor and the business operators, there has to be deep trust, and that trust is earned through outcomes.”

Power player

McKenna has held numerous roles in the upper echelons of the Australian corporate world. In addition to her position as chief executive of broadcasting at News Corp, partner at Illyria, chair of Nova Entertainment, executive chair of Sky and at Foxtel until she steered through its private sale this year, she has sat on the boards of Australia Post, the NBN, the Productivity Commission, the Australian Ballet, Woolworths and ASX-listed investment manager Amcil.

Despite her success, getting the true measure of McKenna is not easy. She has assiduously protected her privacy, not speaking publicly and rarely granting interviews. McKenna declined an interview or to take any part in this profile. She suggested most people would be reluctant to speak on the record about her, too. She was right.

The 60-plus former and current colleagues, friends and observers that Good Weekend spoke to describe a complex character: private, intimidating, highly intelligent, ultra-connected, political, scary, loyal, diplomatic, cold, a force of nature and the embodiment of Melbourne’s weather – four seasons in a day.

One close colleague who remains on warm terms with McKenna candidly describes her as “feared, respected and disliked in equal measures”, while another former colleague notes her ability to make subordinates weak at the knees with fear. “It’s complicated. Because she doesn’t speak publicly, you’re sort of resistant to speak publicly about her without really knowing what the price is for that,” one of Australia’s most public-facing chief executives says. “A lot of people have power. They don’t really know how to wield it effectively. She is very proximate to that [Murdoch] power, and she’s good at using it. I am saying that in a complimentary way, not a negative way.”

“When you work with one of the world’s most powerful people,” says business columnist Joe Aston, “it gives you a certain amount of cover.”

All this has made McKenna into a highly aggressive negotiator, one with a sense of assuredness backed by an understanding of her power.

Playing politics

McKenna’s politics largely remain a mystery, but two News Corp editors suggest she’s more than likely a counterbalance to Lachlan, who is built in the conservative form of his father.

She counts close friends on both sides of the political spectrum, such as Catherine Andrews, wife of former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews (who hasn’t had an invitation to the Christmas party), as well as Josh Frydenberg and Katie Allen, her children’s godmother.

After writing her undergraduate thesis on Indigenous land rights following the Mabo decision, McKenna invited Yes23 director Dean Parkin to give a talk and information session for News Corp employees early in the lead-up to the Voice referendum. McKenna and Campbell Reid, News Corp’s retiring corporate affairs don, were well-known supporters of a Yes vote inside their Holt Street headquarters and pushed for the company to back the Yes vote in discussions which involved Lachlan. Once public sentiment began to shift, however, any chance of support was quashed. With her power lying largely outside the newspapers, McKenna made the case and lost but faced no consequence for breaking ranks.

After coming on board initially as chair of just Fox Sports in 2017, McKenna additionally pushed the male-dominated sports network to increase its ESG (environmental, social and governance) targets, and she’s also an “absolute champion for gender diversity in business”, Cathy O’Connor adds. During the 2010s, McKenna and Sarah Murdoch organised social events for prominent women in Illyria and News Corp.

McKenna rubs shoulders with (from left) Michelle Gunn, editor-in-chief of The Australian, as well as PM Anthony Albanese and Sky News CEO Paul Whittaker.Credit: News Corp Australia

McKenna was described to Good Weekend as a “teal in another life”, or at least more politically aligned with the more liberal James Murdoch, yet inside camp News Corp that makes her an ideal Labor appointee. Many view her as a proxy for the Murdochs and a political appointment, one lobbyist says, a claim she has previously rejected.

One of those appointments proved highly controversial. In 2009, McKenna joined the board of the NBN and was made chair in 2013. This developed into something of a political football role when it became apparent that a Coalition government would be elected later that year, with then shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull agitating about cost blowouts and delays, prompting McKenna to hire lobbyists with hopes of improving relations with the opposition.

The move proved fruitless, and the board resigned before Turnbull could sack them. He is eager to stress 12 years later that it wasn’t personal. “There was only one director with relevant experience, Kerry Schott, and so apart from her and a corporate lawyer, I replaced all the directors, including Ms McKenna,” the former prime minister says. “Nothing personal, just getting the best qualified people onto the board.”

Regardless of Turnbull’s reasons, one Murdoch watcher suggests the public spat and sacking of McKenna may have left Lachlan, his father and News Corp “highly motivated to finish [Malcolm] off” five years later when he was prime minister.

Stephen Conroy who, as communications minister at the time, appointed McKenna, disagrees with the contention she wasn’t qualified. “She has a full, formidable intellect, is discreet, has a huge work ethic and has a commitment to public service.” With another 12 months, he says, she would have turned the rollout issues around, no doubt.

It was almost a decade later when Labor came calling again, the Albanese government appointing McKenna chair of Australia Post in late 2022, a suitable landing spot after leaving the board of Woolworths. She was able to take the position by staying at arm’s length from News Corp editorial output, yet some still view it as another example of Labor kowtowing to the Murdochs.

A novel digression

In 2020, McKenna did something that took parts of Australia’s corporate community by surprise, releasing Man in Armour, a book of corporate fiction, described by one industry figure as a mix of an Ayn Rand novel and 50 Shades of Grey. Written over 10 years, and inspired by Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, it centres around “Charles” – a white, middle-aged investment banker with three children, deep in the cut-throat throes of London’s financial district.

“I said I would only publish it if an actual publisher thought it was worthy,” McKenna told business podcast Fear & Greed. Her love of books is well known. Those who took part in Zoom calls during lockdowns marvel at her bookshelf and the collection flanking her in her private office.

News Corp supremo Siobhan McKenna. Illustration: Joe Benke Credit:

McKenna had considered publishing under a pseudonym, but ultimately went with her name, upending her decades-long approach to media by conducting a press tour, all for one of her greatest passions, the written word. She even set up a Facebook page devoted to promoting her book, showing a more personal side, talking about coping strategies, the stresses of putting yourself into the unknown, her love of ballet, travel for work and spending time at her son’s fencing practice while working on her follow-up novel set in 1990s Silicon Valley.

The publisher to acquire the book was – naturally – News Corp’s own Harper Collins, and sales were helped by advertising spots on Nova-owned Smooth FM and Sky News, two companies overseen by McKenna. It quickly became the stuff of legend among some sections of the media and business community, particularly for a graphic sex scene involving pieces of sushi.

The release fell during COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, and on hand to host the virtual book launch – attended by some of Australia’s most connected people – was her close friend Catherine Andrews, a choice indicative of McKenna’s ability to separate the personal and professional. Two months earlier, Sky host Peta Credlin had described Andrews’ husband as “a lethal mix of political rat cunning, PR spin, unwarranted self-belief and sheer utter incompetence”, while a month later The Australian labelled her a “mean girl” and “wife of Dictator Dan” among the regular attacks the state leader faced from the different corners of News Corp.

Reading Man in Armour, it’s not hard to see the source of the material, likening the art of the deal to that of a “battlefield”. (There’s speculation the titular character, Charles, is based on a member of Melbourne’s business community.)

The next step

Since the sale of Foxtel in April, questions have lingered over McKenna’s next chapter. A figure having reached such heights surely wouldn’t settle for just Sky News and Nova, two companies she’s overseen for some time.

McKenna suffered a serious medical scare in 2024, requiring weeks of leave. Those close to her would not discount a current brief period of rest before a new role emerges abroad. Two of her sons are already students at prestigious American universities, adding intrigue to whether a role at News Corp’s head office beckons.

Almost everything Lachlan Murdoch has done in Australia since returning two decades ago has had McKenna’s fingerprints on it, and now that the uncertainty over his future standing is gone, those fingerprints have begun appearing on a more global stage, and a board seat may beckon. Given McKenna played such a central role in the final chapter of the 30-year Murdoch succession race, US media commentator David Folkenflik says Lachlan Murdoch will be loyal to her for a long time. “She was there when it counted,” he says, “and served him well.”

Her role in securing the family empire for both Murdoch men leaves her the most powerful woman in their empire. And unlike his father, Lachlan has a track record of appointing women. According to one close observer, he takes pride in doing so in the case of Fox News boss Suzanne Scott.

Still, what’s next for McKenna is unknown. Four months ago, Lachlan signed his father’s right-hand man, Robert Thomson, to another five-year contract. Even then, such a public-facing position isn’t where McKenna has thrived over the past three decades.

McKenna represents everything News Corp is becoming under Lachlan Murdoch – a much more private and measured company than the one run by his comparatively gunslinging father. It’s focused on numbers, profitability and less legacy news, at least locally. At News Corp, executives and editors rise, fall and trade off their relationship to the Murdochs. None is more secure than McKenna.

She is the acceptable face of the family empire, and she wields her power more effectively than others, behind closed doors, just how she likes it.

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