Simon McKeon is Chairman of CSIRO and Chairman Elect of AMP Limited.
He was the 2011 Australian of the Year.
Simon recently retired from Macquarie Group after a 30 year career culminating in his position as Executive Chairman (Melbourne Office).
Simon has degrees in Law and Commerce from the University of Melbourne and prior to joining Macquarie, practised as a solicitor with Blake Dawson Waldron in Sydney. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
He is an Australia Day Ambassador for the Victorian Government. He is also a Business Ambassador for the Northern Territory Government.
He is Chairman of Business for Millennium Development which is focussed on encouraging business to pursue opportunities in the developing world. He is also Chairman of Global Poverty Project Australia.
Simon is the inaugural President of the Australian banking industry’s Review Panel for the Banking and Finance Oath. He was the 2011 ABF Australian Banking Ambassador of the Year.
He also serves on the Board of Red Dust Role Models which connects well known Australians with indigenous youth.
Simon is a member of the Big Issue Advisory Board, served on its Advisory Board for Melbourne’s successful tender for the 2008 Homeless World Cup and chairs its Advisory Board for its Asian World Cup Involvement. He has also been Chairman of Essendon Football Club’s Hutchison Foundation and Patron of Melbourne’s successful tender for the 2009 World Parliament of Religions.
He was Chairman of the Federal Government’s Panel which in February 2013 completed a Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research.
He was Chairman of MYOB from 2006 until 2009.
Simon served on the Board of UK based VisionFund from 2004 until 2012 which has responsibility for World Vision International’s micro economic development activities and also served on the Federal Government’s Human Rights Grants Scheme Advisory Panel from 2009 until 2013. He was also a Patron for the United Nations Year of Microcredit 2005 (Australian Committee) and AusAid’s Business Engagement Steering Committee from 2011 until 2013. Simon served on the Board of World Vision Australia from 1994 until 2005 and prior to this was a Director of the Archbishop of Melbourne’s Relief and Development Fund. He also served on the Board of Global Poverty Project Incfrom 2009 until 2014.
He was appointed by the Federal Government as the Founding President of the Australian Takeovers Panel and served from 1999 until 2010.
Simon was the Founding Chair of MS Research Australia from 2004 until 2010 and has also previously served on the Boards of MS Australia and MS Victoria. In 2010, Simon received the John Studdy Award which is MS Australia’s highest honour. He currently serves as Patron of MS Research Australia and as an Ambassador for National Disability Services (Victoria). He served as a member of the Victorian Government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme Implementation Task Force between 2011 and 2013.
In 2013, Simon received Research Australia’s Leadership and Innovation Award and in 2014 was awarded the Australian Academy of Science’s Academy Medal.
Simon serves on the University of Melbourne Campaign Board and was also a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the University of Melbourne’s Graduate Program in Law. He has also been a part time lecturer with the University’s Masters of Applied Finance and Masters of Laws courses and has been a member of the Advisory Board of the University’s Centre for Energy and Resources Law. He was also a member of the Editorial Board of the Company & Securities Law Journal between 1988 and 2012 and had responsibility for its Takeovers Section.
Simon served as Chairman of the Board of the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria from 2005 until 2008. He has previously served on the Victorian Rhodes Scholarship Committee, the Council of St Leonard’s College and the Board of Beaconhills Christian College. He was Chairman of In2Science, which was a science based mentoring program for schools, from 2013 to 2014.
Simon served as Chairman of the Federal Government’s Point Nepean Community Trust from 2004 until 2009 and has been the Business Ambassador for the World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour initiative and an Ambassador for Parks Victoria’s Healthy Parks Healthy People International Congress 2010.
Simon is the helmsman of Macquarie Innovation which in March 2009 became the first sailboat in the world to sustain more than 50 knots and in so doing, peaked at a speed of 100 kmh (54 knots). Previously he was the helmsman of the Yellow Pages Endeavour which held the outright world sailing speed record between 1993 and 2004.
He was also the helmsman for Australia’s Little America’s Cup syndicate which held the trophy from 1985 until 1996. He is a Founding Patron of the Australian Olympic Sailing Team which won 2 gold and a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 3 gold and a silver medal (and was the leading sailing nation) at the 2012 London Olympics. Simon sails out of McCrae Yacht Club and served as Club Captain from 2004 until 2006.