The Vincent Fairfax Fellowship: 30 years of nurturing ethical leaders

The Vincent Fairfax Fellowship was founded to nurture young leaders so that they would look beyond their own career scoreboard, to serve the community and protect future generations, and this year it is celebrating its 30^th anniversary.

“For 30 years, the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship has existed at the intersection of principle and practice, bringing together thoughtful, dedicated leaders to cultivate ethical insight and create meaningful change across their organisations, sectors and communities,” reads the introduction to an e-book celebrating the 30^th anniversary. Titled (At) the Intersection, it features essays, articles and video clips of roundtables of Fellowship alumni discussing what they learned, how they apply those lessons, and what the fellowship has meant to their careers and lives.

More than 400 alumni

These lessons guide Mick Grainger, an assistant commissioner at Victoria Police. They guide the CEO of the CSIRO, Dr Doug Hilton, and they guided retired judge Elizabeth Hollingworth at the Supreme Court of Victoria.

The CEO of Australian Unity, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, STREAT Café’s visionary leader, Bec Scott, Australian Productivity Commissioner Barry Sterland, senior Telstra executive and general counsel Lyndall Stoyles, and so many more – now over 400 alumni, carrying the wisdom and leadership essentials of the fellowship.

Having started life as the Vincent Fairfax Ethics in Leadership Awards, curated by the St James Ethics Centre, the program became the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship at the same time that it moved to the Melbourne Business School, and then on to the University of Melbourne’s Ormond College. In 2018, the Vincent Fairfax Ethics in Leadership Foundation formed a partnership with the Cranlana Foundation, the Myer Foundation and Monash University to create the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership, a new home for the fellowship’s management, learning modules, peer-led discussions and reflective practices. It has been run from Cranlana ever since.

The ripples of the fellowship have travelled well beyond key figures in Australian public life and business. One alumnus of the first intake 30 years ago, Perth-based author David Wray, has just published a book of fiction, Diamond of the Desert, a rollicking adventure that tells the story of colonisation from an Indigenous point of view, and launched it as Western Australia prepares for its bicentenary of white settlement. Wray, who consulted with Indigenous Western Australians during his research for the book, is offering the book free to not-for-profits as a fundraiser, hoping to spark a discussion about the colonisation experiences of First Nations people.

Our Community founder Denis Moriarty studied alongside David Wray and others as one of the first Fellows and took the lessons of the fellowship into establishing SmartyGrants, the Community Advocate and other enterprises.

“I had the greatest fortune to be picked 30 years ago as one of the first 15 young Australians (time flies) for cohort number one of the ethics fellowship,” Denis said.

“To say it has shaped my life is an understatement – it taught me to be brave, to say no when everyone else is saying yes, and it made me be a more decent person than I ever could have been without it.

“There are now over 400 Fellows, and the wisdom in the resources produced to honour the 30 years of the fellowship should be used by any person wanting to improve the world.”

The influence of the fellowship

The lessons of the fellowship are visible in much of Denis’s career, from the creation of Our Community 25 years ago to the publication of the The Radical Moderate only last month. A series of essays and opinions, The Radical Moderate urges leaders to be willing to listen to all sides, consider evidence and explore opposing views before making considered decisions; to refuse to be drawn in to polarisation and extremism.

The premise will not surprise the hundreds of alumni who have undertaken the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship – the Radical Moderate project argues the case for ethical, intelligent, reflective leadership for the greater good, even if it comes at a personal cost.

A reaction to the rise of greed

In the foreword to (At) the Intersection, Sir Vincent’s great-grandson William White says the fellowship was created as a reaction to the rise of corporate greed in the 1990s and Sir Vincent’s determination “to build a community of leaders who could offer an alternative”.

Or, as Sir Vincent himself put it in 1983, “Let us remember that the power and wealth of a democracy is measured not only by the number and quality of its eminent leaders but by thousands of ‘little’ leaders who provide its real strength.”

In January 1995, the first group of fellows were pictured sitting in the dirt, fresh from an Outward Bound course, near Broken Bay, NSW. Among them was Denis Moriarty, learning lessons that would shape how he faced the world.

Reflecting on the 30^th anniversary, Denis said, “Congratulations to Simon Longstaff, the first and wisest ‘ethicist’ we had, and the wonderful Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership, which now manages the program.

“I would seriously urge all leaders to apply for the next round of Vincent Fairfax Fellowships. In a very deliberate, shrugging-off-the-cliché way, I would emphasise: it’s life-changing.”

More information

Explore (At) the Intersection.

Information about applying for the 2026 and 2027 Vincent Fairfax Fellowships, here.