Profile: Jeremy K. Ellis, ’83, Australia
August 2006
For living proof that leadership skills can transfer across a variety of enterprises, meet Jeremy Kitson Ellis, the 1983 Eisenhower Fellow from Australia. Jerry Ellis, as he’s universally known in Australia and as far afield as Japan and the U.S., heads institutions in the spheres of business, education, research, the environment, and sport. His innate capacity for leadership matured during more than 30 years in the resources and steel industry as he rose through the management structure at Broken Hill Propriety Company (now BHP Billiton, the world's largest diversified resources company). He ultimately served as its chairman of the board.
Currently Ellis is chancellor of Monash University in Melbourne, whose campuses in Malaysia and South Africa and centers in London and Prato, Italy, make it Australia’s most internationalized university. In the business arena, he is a director of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and chairman of Pacifica Group Ltd., a world leader in automotive brake technology. In the non-profit sphere he chairs Australia’s premier environmental advocacy group Landcare Australia, the think-tank Future Directions International, and Golf Australia, the country’s governing body for the sport. Since 1993 he has been a trustee of Eisenhower Fellowships. In recent years, Ellis has served as chairman of the Australia-Japan Foundation and co-chairman of the 2001 Australia-Japan Conference for the 21st Century. Through membership on corporate boards and on various councils and institutes he remained involved in the minerals industry and also served as chairman of the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission.
“Who is this management?”
Born in England, Ellis was eleven years old when his family moved to Australia. He returned to England as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a degree in engineering at Oxford, but was soon back in Australia working as a process control engineer for a chemical company. It was the frustrations in this job that sparked his interest in management theory. As he recalled in a 1996 interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, his group had completed a project only to have it set aside because “management” couldn’t arrange the next step. He kept asking, “Who is this management?” and was told they “were the men in suits who wandered through the control room every now and then.” Baffled, Ellis turned to his friend and mentor Don Glover, who recommended reading Peter Drucker’s book, The Practice of Management, which inspired him to seek a position in management for himself. In 1967 he took a job as an organization planning officer at Broken Hill Proprietary.
He had found his métier. During the next years he held positions of increasing responsibility at BHP until, in 1982, as general manager group subsidiaries and general manager corporate planning, he caught the attention of the Australian EF nominating committee. On his Fellowship in 1983 he discussed the theory and practice of corporate planning with CEOs, presidents, and other high ranking executives in the steel, oil, banking, computer, and manufacturing industries and also met with experts in universities and consulting firms. His wife Ann investigated techniques for helping adults with hearing loss.
In addition to gaining insights into American best practice in his field, Ellis welcomed the “dramatic” extension of his network of business contacts that the Fellowship provided. Also, he recalled, “the beauty of the Fellowship... was the period in Philadelphia learning about American institutions as well as, of course, getting to know the other Fellows better and the learning that came from our differing reactions to the U.S.”
After his Fellowship, Ellis continued to ascend the corporate ladder, managing a division of BHP Steel and later becoming CEO of BHP Minerals. Under his leadership, that company turned into BHP’s most successful business and grew to be the world’s second biggest copper producer. At BHP Minerals, Ellis endured a punishing travel schedule, including two flights across the Pacific every month for three consecutive years. In 1991 he was named a director of BHP and some years later was appointed chairman of the board. He retired in 1999.
Eisenhower Fellowship has benefited greatly from Ellis’s experience and energy. He has chaired successive Australian nominating committees, raised funds, helped program USA Fellows, and was heavily involved in preparations for the 2000 World Conference in Sydney. His dedication to EF reflects what Meredith Hellicar, the 1993 Australian Fellow, has described as a “widely based world awareness and a commitment to ensuring [that] others in Australia have the opportunity to develop the same and that other countries and organizations get to know the ‘real Australia.’”
Asked what makes Ellis a sought-after leader for a wide range of organizations, Hellicar cited “an economy of style, which means he chairs meetings efficiently and with focus, a willingness to listen to the views of others, good judgment of people, and an excellent, dry sense of humor. Finally, he reflects an outward looking and global view and brings this and his own experiences to bear in each role that he plays.”