Our special guest on this episode is globally respected business leader, Nicholas Moore AO.

In a remarkable corporate career that extends across more than three decades, Nicholas has established a formidable track record of success, predicated on an innate ability to recognise opportunity across investment markets well ahead of the curve.

As his interest in the function of business grew during the latter part of his teenage years, Nicholas enrolled in a Bachelor of Laws / Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of New South Wales, spending some five and half years at UNSW, including six months at the College of Law to become a qualified solicitor.

Following graduation in 1982, Nicholas was drawn to the field of accountancy and joined Cherry & Partners Chartered Accountants (later to become Peat Marwick / KPMG), specialising in taxation services for a period of four years - during this time, Nicholas also completed the Chartered Accountancy program.

By 1986 and owing in large part to the encouragement of a seminal influence and mentor in his early career, John Caldon, then Deputy Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking, Nicholas joined Macquarie Group in the firm’s financial packaging division.

The fortuitous timing of his move to Macquarie coincided during a period of significant deregulation in Australia’s financial markets throughout the 1980’s which unleashed a climate of innovation, coupled with a growing assertiveness and dominance across the firm’s domestic operations.

Over the course of the next decade, Nicholas became an instrumental figure within Macquarie’s corporate services division, with a broad remit across a range of transactions including Sydney’s Hills Motorway, a deal that gave rise to the establishment of the firm’s infrastructure business.

Upon its formation in 2001, Nicholas was appointed Head of Macquarie’s Investment Banking Group (now known as Macquarie Capital), overseeing remarkable progress over the course of the next seven years including ten-fold growth in net income as well as global expansion for the group’s operations across advisory, funds management and financing - this included some 3,600 team members working in more than fifty offices and twenty countries throughout the World.

In February 2008, Macquarie announced to the market that Nicholas Moore would be appointed the firm’s next Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, becoming only the fifth person in the organisations near forty-year history.

Having been appointed in the depths of the Global Financial Crisis, Nicholas transformed the business over the course of the ensuing decade (2008 - 2018) - de-risking the business model through strategic acquisition, global expansion into funds management & infrastructure investment, and an emphasis on annuity-style income.

In unquestionably one of the firm’s most defining decades across it’s storied fifty-year history, Nicholas ushered in a new era for Macquarie Group - building upon the firm’s unique risk management framework and celebrated bottom-up approach to the identification of opportunity and employee empowerment, he steered the organisation’s presence on a global stage, perhaps most distinctly illustrated via the lifting of the firm’s international income by 67 percent, a portfolio of assets under management that exceeded $550bn, a revenue base through which 70% of income was derived offshore and a 300 percent increase in shareholder returns - an extraordinary legacy of success.

Following a thirty-three-year career at Macquarie Group, including close to eleven years as CEO, Nicholas stepped down in 2018 and began focusing on a number of projects and ventures that presented him with new opportunity to contribute his considerable skillset & expertise across both public and professional life.

Nicholas currently holds several significant chairmanships and directorships, including Chairman of Willow Technology Corporation, Screen Australia, The Centre for Independent Studies, The Smith Family, and the National Catholic Education Commission.

In a rare and exclusive profile, Nicholas discusses his incredible journey, from re-shaping a global financial powerhouse with over 15,000 employees across the World, to leading some of Australia’s most important philanthropic organisations - sharing the key lessons for success, and life, along the way. 

The Interview - Australia's flagship business series.