Mark R.G. Johnson
Long standing member Mark R.G. Johnson has recently died. Mark was born in Fiji in 1940. He obtained his law degree from Melbourne University, and subsequently graduated from the Harvard Business School in 1965. At Harvard he met David Clarke, who graduated from HBS the year after Mark. Together they were a formidable duo in Australian Banking and Financial Services. Mark joined Darling & Company in 1967 which subsequently became Hill Samuel Australia. He worked with Hill Samuel in London from 1977 to 1980. Upon returning to Australia he was a founder director and CEO of Australian Bank Limited, the first bank to obtain a banking licence after deregulation.
Mark subsequently joined Macquarie Bank in 1987 as head of the Corporate Services Division. He is credited by Macquarie as being a key architect of the culture of the Macquarie Group.
Mark was a 61 year member of the Harvard Club of Australia. He served on the committee from 1968 to 1970. The minutes of a meeting of September 11th 1968 record that "Messrs Clarke and Johnson were authorised to organise a Melbourne Cup sweep based upon their best judgement in order to raise funds". A report in the minutes of December 2nd 1968 reported the success of the sweep and resolved that a sum of $500 be forwarded to the Scholarship fund at ANU in Canberra.
Mark was a long serving director of a number of Australian public companies including Australian Gas Light Co. He was involved in mining as Chairman and major shareholder of Dateline Resources, a junior gold miner in the US. He was a senior advisor to Gresham.
Mark was Chairman of the Australian Financial Centre Task Force in 2009-10, an Australian Government initiative directed towards ensuring efficiency and competitiveness in the financial services sector. From 2002-2013 he was one of the three Australian representatives on the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and Chairman of the APEC CEO Summit in Sydney in 2007.
In 2010 Mark was awarded the Order of Australia (AO) for services to business and for leadership roles within finance and healthcare organisations.