By Stephen Brook and Samantha Hutchinson
Happy news to unite two prominent Melbourne families. Ollie Howard, son of Victorian Governor Linda Dessau and her husband, Anthony Howard, a former County Court judge, is engaged to Lauren Thurin, granddaughter of property developer and philanthropist John Gandel.
The young couple has announced the happy news with a nod to both traditional and modern audiences: an advertisement in engagements column of the Australian Jewish News and a social media post.
Thurin, who celebrated her 30th last May with a virtual event to raise money for mental health charities, is the daughter of Gandel’s daughter, Lisa Thurin, and her husband, David Thurin, a lifetime member of the Melbourne Demons and owner of Tigcorp.
Lauren Thurin was previously based in New York and working for Flat World Partners, an advisory and investment firm focused on sustainability and impact.
Howard, meanwhile, an arts law graduate from Monash University, has veered away from his parents’ trade and has worked in Europe as chairman of AFL Europe, expanding the game into 22 European countries.
He is managing director, sports & event tech, at Startupbootcamp, which matches founders of small tech start-ups with mentors.
Given the Gandels are famously private, and Dessau has made it a policy not to comment about her children, no one was keen to speak to CBD on Thursday. But given a previous Gandel family celebration booked no less than Hugh Jackman as entertainment, the wedding will be quite the event.
Lew’s coup
Solomon Lew pulled off a coup this week convincing well-connected JB Hi-Fi boss Richard Murray to jump ship to run Lew’s Premier Investments, a gig which includes retailers Just Jeans, Peter Alexander and Smiggle.
The role also carries the added responsibility of representing Lew, who has forged a reputation as one of retail’s sharpest elbowed players — somewhat of a step change from the congenial Murray who is one of the more prolific Liberal Party fundraisers.
Credit: John Shakespeare
So it will be interesting to see how Murray handles the first diplomatic hurdle in his new role. Murray has been an active member of the Australian Retailers Association peak body over the past five years and serves as the chair of the ARA’s chief executive’s advisory committee. He also played a key role in appointing former David Jones chief executive Paul Zahra to lead the organisation.
But there’s one problem. Premier Investments has remained steadfastly outside the tent, refusing to join the ARA. “Not his style,” one industry boss remarked of Lew.
But the industry anticipates Premier will soon come into the fold.
But there’s another difference between the two businessmen. Under Murray, JB Hi-Fi didn’t claim JobKeeper during the pandemic, amid an online spending boom which lifted first-half earnings by 86 per cent. Meanwhile, Premier netted more than $15 million from the subsidy, even as the company posted an 89 per cent lift in profits. And Lew has been unequivocal the group will keep the cash, arguing it’s to pay staff in the event of “any further … snap COVID-19 lockdowns”. Question is, will Murray feel the same way?
Sliding doors
There’s a lot of love for departing ABC chief foreign correspondent Philip Williams, leaving Aunty after 46 years.
But the appreciative profiles have failed to mention a rare honour bestowed on the genial Williams: he is one of the few, if not the only, journalists to hang in the National Portrait Gallery.
The 2019 painting by his brother-in-law, Rick Amor, depicts a melancholy Williams bearing witness to history.
And while the ABC coverage of the retirement was akin to a national moment, there was no word on Williams’ replacement.
Coincidently, in a parallel event, the BBC’s former Australian correspondent Nick Bryant, based in New York for the past eight years, announced that after 25 years at the Beeb, he was leaving and returning to Sydney with his Australian wife, designer Fleur Wood and their three children. He said on Facebook he was looking forward to whatever came next, but gave no word on what that was.
Like we said, a complete coincidence.
On the list
Labor Senator Kristina Keneally gets a lot of invitations.
But here’s one that would have surprised her: an emailed invitation from the Roseville branch of the Liberal Party for a Northern Sydney Conservative Forum function.
The May 17 “dinner and discussion” will feature Queensland Senator Amanda Stoker and the Northern Territory’s Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the deputy mayor of Alice Springs and director of Indigenous research at the right-wing think tank, Centre for Independent Studies.
But the real star of the show is expected to be Sky News’ Peta Credlin, now fully recovered from her thigh-slapping injury during her recent exuberant 50th birthday at the Melbourne Club.
The topic for the “dinner and discussion” is: Meritocracy or Quotas.
Given that Price is super keen to get into Federal Parliament, she might argue for the best of both worlds.
The Conservative Forum might like to ponder just exactly how Keneally, the former NSW Labor premier, got on its mailing list.
One possibility is that former Liberal MP Ross Cameron slipped the senator onto the list when they both worked at Sky. What a joker.
And apparently she’s not the only senior Labor figure on the mailing list. Time for an audit.