Associates

Associates

• Jocelyn Chey
  

  Jocelyn Chey

  Associate

  Jocelyn Chey AM was the Founding Director and currently Adjunct Professor at the Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University. Professor Chey is also an Adjunct Professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney and a Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney. She is a former senior diplomat specialising in Australia-China relations. Professor Chey worked in the Departments of Trade and Foreign Affairs for more than twenty years. She was posted three times to China and Hong Kong, concluding with an appointment as Consul-General in Hong Kong (1992-1995). She was the key administrative officer in the Australia-China Council at the time that it was founded in 1979.

   

  Professor Chey was awarded an Australia-China Council Medal for contributions to the development of relations between Australia and China in November 2008. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) in 2009 for her community service and contribution to the development of relations with China.

• John McCarthy
  

  John McCarthy AO

  Associate

  John McCarthy is a former Australian career diplomat. He joined the then-Department of External Affairs in 1968. He served as an ambassador in seven countries including Japan, Indonesia, the United States, Thailand, Mexico, and Vietnam. Mr McCarthy is currently a Senior Advisor to Mitsubishi Materials Corporation in Tokyo, and a Senior Advisor to Asialink at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this, he was the Chair of the Advisory Board of the Griffith Asia Institute, Chair of the Australian Australia-India Council, Co-Convenor of the Australian-Indonesia Dialogue and National President of the Australian Institute for International Affairs, where he was also appointed as a Fellow in 2009. He was educated at Cambridge University, is an Officer of the Order of Australia (1999), and has an Honorary Doctorate from Murdoch University (2015) and Griffith University (2018).

• David Olsson
  

  David Olsson

  Associate

  David Olsson is National President and Chair of the Australia China Business Council. He is a former Managing Partner of global law firm King & Wood Mallesons, and is currently their International Director. He has been working with clients in Asia for more than 25 years, and is currently based in Hong Kong. He has been a lead participant in numerous Australia – China bi-lateral initiatives, especially in the area of financial market reform. He is a former chairman of the Australia – China Chamber of Commerce, Beijing. He serves on the Board of the Australia China Council and the Australia China Business Council, Victoria. He is the chairman of the Australian Renminbi Working Group, a private sector led initiative supported by the Australian, Hong Kong and mainland Chinese governments which is looking at renminbi business in Australia.

• Jonathan Pain
  

  Jonathan Pain

  Associate

  Jonathan Pain is a Director of JP Consulting NSW Pty Ltd and has 30 years of international investment experience having led investment teams in London, Bahrain and Australia. He is the author and publisher of an investment newsletter, The Pain Report. He is well known for his contrarian views and is a regular guest on CNBC TV and speaks at conferences around the world. Mr Pain holds a joint honours degree in Economics and Politics from Keele University and a Masters degree in Finance from Exeter University. Having been born in South Africa and lived in Lesotho, Swaziland, England and Bahrain, he now calls Australia home.

• Geoff Raby
  

  Geoff Raby AO

  Associate

  Geoff Raby was Australia’s ambassador to China from 2007 to 2011. Following completion of his ambassadorial term, after 27 years in the public service, mostly with DFAT, he resigned to establish Geoff Raby and Associates Ltd. Dr Raby also holds a number of non-executive, independent director positions with ASX-listed companies, including OceanaGold, Yancoal, and iSentia. He was appointed to the Investment Attraction South Australia Advisory Board on 29 March, 2016. In China, Dr Raby serves as Co-Chair of Corrs Chambers Westgarth’s China practice. He is head of Trade Policy at the London-based think-tank Policy Exchange. Dr Raby is a member of the not-for-profit Advance Global Advisory Board, University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre Advisory Board, La Trobe University Asia Advisory Board, and the Foundation of the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2019, Dr Raby was awarded an Officer in the General Division (AO) for his distinguished service to Australia-China relations through senior diplomatic roles, and to multilateral trade policy development.

   

• Richard Rigby
  

  Richard Rigby

  Associate

  Richard Rigby is the Executive Director of the Australian National University (ANU) China Institute, Professorial Fellow at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, and the Associate Director of the Centre on China in the World (CIW). Professor Rigby graduated in History at the ANU in 1970 and went on to do his PhD – subsequently reworked and published by the ANU Press as The May 30th Movement – under Professor Wang Gungwu in the then Department of Far Eastern History (now the School of Culture, History & Language). Professor Rigby joined Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs in 1975, where he worked until the end of 2001. Postings included Tokyo, Beijing (twice), Shanghai (Consul-General 1994-1998), London, and Israel (Ambassador, 2000-2001). He then joined the Office of National Assessments as Assistant Director-General, responsible for North and South Asia, where he worked until taking up his current position with the ANU China Institute in April 2008.

• Laurie Smith
  

  Laurie Smith

  Associate

  Laurie Smith is currently the Non-Executive Director of the Australia China Business Council. He served as the Executive Director of International at Austrade (2011-2015) and before that lived and worked in China in various government and private sector roles for close to 20 years. Mr Smith has extensive experience in trade, investment and related policy issues in Asia generally and greater China in particular and has worked across many industry sectors with particular experience in agriculture, food, technology, media, education and training. Mr Smith has a Bachelor of Science from Melbourne University, and undertook post-graduate study at Peking University. He is fluent in Mandarin.

• Brendan Taylor
  

  Brendan Taylor

  Associate

  Dr. Brendan Taylor is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), Australian National University. He was Head of SDSC from 2011-2016. He is a specialist on great power strategic relations in the Asia-Pacific, East Asian ‘flashpoints’, and Asian security architecture. His writings on these subjects have appeared in such leading journals as Survival, The Washington Quarterly, Australian Foreign Affairs, The Pacific Review, International Affairs and Review of International Studies. He is the author or editor of 12 books, including The Four Flashpoints: How Asia Goes to War (Black Inc, 2018) and Dangerous Decade: Taiwan’s Security and Crisis Management (IISS, 2019) He is a regular op-ed contributor to such publications as The Australian, Nikkei Asian Review, The Australian Financial Review, The Interpreter, East Asia Forum and The Strategist.

• John Varano
  

  John Varano

  Associate

  John Varano is a Senior Manager at nbn™ Australia. He has advised and supported senior executives at ASX companies and government departments and managed large scale transformation programmes. His professional experience in programme management and management consulting extend across defence, financial services, government, healthcare, not-for-profit, resources and telecommunications, and in multiple geographies, including Australia, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. Mr Varano is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Managers and Leaders. He was educated at the University of Oxford, Johns Hopkins University, The University of Melbourne and Monash University.