Sydney architect Luigi Rosselli stakes his firm’s reputation on Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg disembarks from the aid ship Madleen at Ashdod. Picture: X

Generally speaking, sensible people everywhere scoffed at Greta Thunberg and her stunt with a troupe of activists aboard a boat bound for Gaza.

The exception might be Sydney architect Luigi Rosselli. His firm distinguished itself on Tuesday night with an Instagram post seeming to praise the Swedish activist. 

Architect Luigi Rosselli. Picture: John Appleyard

We say seeming because its caption, and the hasty clarification posted afterwards, wasn’t especially coherent. 

“We have often been asked ‘What is a humanist architect?’ … It is a person that builds with care for the environment and well being. Greta could be one,” the post said.

An accompanying photograph contained Greta and Gaza side by side, the picture overlaid with the words “Architects for Humanism”. Again, not entirely coherent, but given that Greta’s in the news the point seemed obvious enough to everyone to draw.

Which is why Rosselli was utterly panned in the comments, leading the firm to clarify that its statement was a “philosophical one and not political”, which no one bought or understood. We’ll see how it goes down with Rosselli’s client base, some of whom, such as designer Camilla Freeman-Topper and advertising executive David Droga, are Jewish.

Supporting Greta’s puerility is stupid enough; staking your firm’s reputation on Greta suggests Rosselli is desperately in want of a career change. Although there were a couple of notable people who praised him, including artist Annalisa Ferraris, PR agent Odette Barry, Lauren Li’s Sisalla Interior Design, and stylist Lucy Feagins. YB

Battle ready

Atop Sydney’s Ivy Precinct, owned by Merivale Group, is the exclusive club known as Level 6, a “club within a club” renowned for its splashings of sex, debauchery and minimal CCTV coverage.

A manager once described the place to a newspaper as “one step away from being a brothel”. 

Not exactly the same vibe in the stately Ivy Ballroom a couple of floors below, in the same building, where several hundred suits gathered on Tuesday for KKR’s annual luncheon – this year featuring an onstage discussion with former US four-star general David Petraeus. 

Sex, surprisingly, still featured as a salient point of the chat, or pornography to be exact. 

Which is only a little ironic given the circumstances under which Petraeus famously resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency in 2012, his career derailed by an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. A measly infraction by today’s standards, in the Trump era, but it was a monumental scandal during the Obama years for some reason. 

The retired US general leaves his mark during a 2019 visit to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage

In any case, Petraeus was hired by KKR the following year and is now chairman of its global institute and Middle East division, which is why he was on stage for the company in Sydney.   

But it wasn’t strictly sex or porn that Petraeus talked about during his hour fielding questions.

There was some chat about drone warfare, the growing redundancy of tanks, the perilous strait that separates China, Taiwan and the drones apparently mobilised beneath it. Business heads who’d come for his take on US equities, tariffs, the dollar and Trump were all left wanting.

But they were rewarded on Ukraine, when Petraeus really hit his stride. He spoke of the North Korean soldiers who had been drafted to help the Russians on the frontlines, men who dutifully obeyed commands but who were later being mowed down in great numbers.

Petraeus implied these North Koreans were superb at taking orders but not much chop on the battlefield. 

The problem, he explained, was their sudden access to pornography. Much harder to source the stuff in the Democratic Republic. But in Russia? Porn is plentiful! All varieties and flavours, and it’s clearly kept the comrades busy when they’re not, you know, sallying forth to meet a bullet. YB

MRC’s quick pivot

Shambolic, chaotic, or a quick pivot to success? Only Melbourne Racing Club chairman John Kanga knows, after MRC CEO Tom Reilly failed to get past his probationary period at the club.

Kanga said on Monday night Reilly was removed from his position because “sometimes it just doesn’t work out”.

Leave aside the fanfare at Reilly’s appointment only three months ago, when things don’t go as they should “it is best to pivot and move on”.

There’s a bit of that going around at the MRC, looking at the rapid exodus of senior management since Kanga took control of the club’s board in October.

Former chief executive Josh Blanksby left the MRC in August, around the time Kanga launched his public campaign to spill the bulk of the club’s board.

Melbourne Racing Club chairman John Kanga. Picture: Jason Edwards

Since then a laundry list of senior club executives have also left – operations director Jake Norton, chief financial officer Brent Westerbeek, legal and corporate affairs boss Damian Menz, commercial director Alana Bray, tracks and training manager Jason Kerr, and a fair few others lower down the management chain at the club.

In all, only four of the nine members of the executive team listed in the MRC’s last annual report – released in September 2024 – remain with the club.

Reilly’s quick departure might well be sticking in a few throats among the exodus, given the now-departed internal candidates overlooked for the role.

Margin Call hears that MRC board member Barbara Saunders – who sits on the club’s nominations, remuneration, and governance subcommittee – has also quit in the wake of Reilly’s axing.

Despite Kanga’s assurances to MRC members he’d put “a management structure in place to ensure a smooth transition” from Reilly’s sudden departure, it looks very much like most of Reilly’s obvious successors have already left the building.

And who will step in?

Well, Kanga himself, of course, who is promising to “spend more time at the club” as it looks for a new CEO. Very Andrew Forrest vibes. Also coming in to help out are two people close to Kanga’s biggest backer in the racing fraternity, billionaire horse owner Jonathan Munz. Tanya Fullarton is vice-chair of the Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners Association, where Munz is the chairman. And the boss of Munz’s private racing training centre will sign on as a consultant “for a few months” to help out as well.

All this from a man that has been talking up a merger between Melbourne’s main racing clubs.

It’s only six months until MRC’s big event at Caulfield, no doubt everything will be sorted out by then. NE