NEIL BALNAVES AO
1944 – 2022
Neil Richard Balnaves was born in Adelaide in 1944, the middle child of three children to Sidney and Jean Balnaves. Having attended King’s College in Adelaide (1957-61) and upon leaving school at age 16, Neil embarked on a career with Rigby Publishers.
In 1968 Neil joined Kevin Weldon in PR and advertising at Paul Hamlyn’s Australian arm of the Hamlyn Group and in doing so found himself in Sydney, where he took up residence in Neutral Bay on Sydney’s North Shore. It was in Sydney that Neil met his wife Diane, also originally from Adelaide. Neil and Diane were married in 1971 and relocated together to Mosman, also on the North Shore, where Neil remained for the rest of his life.
It was in television that Neil achieved his greatest professional success, when at age 30 he was appointed to head up the local arm of the American animation house Hanna-Barbera. In 1978, James Hardie Industries (later known as Taft-Hardie Group) bought the Hamlyn Group, thereby taking control of Hanna Barbera Australia, as well as Rigby Publishers and Neil was appointed Chief Executive of the publishing and leisure division of Hardie, renamed the Rigby Group.
It was during this period that Neil made two of his most significant business decisions. The first was to recognise video as an emerging segment of the industry in 1979 – and act on it by partnering with Paramount Pictures and MCA Universal, two of Hollywood’s largest studios, in a 50/50 joint venture known as CIC-Rigby. The second decision was to form a consortium to develop and build a theme park which became the largest amusement park in the southern hemisphere. In 1985, Australia’s Wonderland in Western Sydney was opened.
In 1988, Neil led a management buyout of the Taft-Hardie Group, rebranding it as Southern Star Group. It was, he stated in 2010, the best investment of his career.
As a film and TV executive, Neil ran Southern Star Group (later Endemol Shine Australia). He was proud to have been involved in bringing many popular shows to Australian screens, including Water Rats, Blue Heelers, Big Brother, The Secret Life of Us, McLeod’s Daughters and Bananas in Pyjamas.
Following a devastating boat accident in 2002 and a long recovery, Neil decided to sell his stake in Southern Star Group and turn his attention to philanthropy. “I give because I’ve been lucky in this country”, he said
Working closely with his wife Diane and children Alexandra, Hamish and Victoria, Neil founded The Balnaves Foundation in 2006. Already an established philanthropist, Neil wanted to create a pathway for intergenerational giving, bringing his family together to help create a better Australia.
As a child Neil suffered polio, an experience that played a major role when deciding where to focus his philanthropic giving. It was this and his more recent accident that led him to decide that the medical sector would be one of the Foundation’s core tenants.
Describing his own childhood in Adelaide, in which art was “a distant concept”, Neil’s enthusiasm for the arts evolved in his later years thanks to Diane’s passion and interest in art. It was his personal experiences and love of contemporary art, in particular sculpture, that fuelled his desire to support the arts and create opportunities where the arts could be engaging and accessible for young people.
As Education is the key to success and the pathway to creating systemic change, Neil elected to make this the third area of focus for the Foundation. It was his hope that by supporting and providing access to education, it would help create significant change now and in the future.
As the Foundation coalesced it became clear that supporting First Nations people, young people and those facing disadvantage were all important to Neil and the Balnaves family, Neil therefore decided that it would be optimal to seek projects that also supported these demographics.
In 2009, son Hamish joined Neil at the Foundation in the role of CEO and together they identified unique innovative projects to support, in the mission of creating a better Australia. For Neil, some of most memorable were Sculpture by the Sea, Sydney Dance Company, Venice Biennale.
Neil was the Chairman of Ardent Leisure Group (now Coast Entertainment Holdings Limited), one of Australia’s most successful owners and operators of premium leisure assets, from 2003 until 2016. Other former directorships include Hanna-Barbara Australia, Reed Consolidated Industries, Hamlyn Group, Taft Hardie, Southern Star Group and Southern Cross Broadcasting.
He was the Chancellor of Charles Darwin University, from 2016 until 2018, and a former Director and Trustee Member of Bond University, receiving an Honorary Doctorate of the Bond University in 2009. In addition, Neil was a Board Member of the Art Gallery of South Australia from 2013 to 2019, a former member of the Advisory Council and Dean’s Circle at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Medicine, and in 2010 received an Honorary Doctorate of the University of New South Wales.
In 2010, Neil was proud to be appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his services to the community through philanthropic support for the arts, education, medical research and Indigenous programs, and to business.
