Evan Thornley

Evan Thornley
Evan Thornley speaking at the True Cost Economics Forum, Melbourne Town Hall, 2007.
Evan Thornley speaking at an Australian Labor Party gathering on the night of the 2006 state election, at which he was a candidate.

Evan William Thornley (born 1964), is an Australian social entrepreneur, philanthropist and impact investor.[1] Thornley is the founder and executive chair of LongView,[2] with a mission to find solutions to Australia's housing crisis.[3] Based on his own childhood without secure housing, he is a passionate advocate for renters[4] as well as bridging the affordability gap for Australian's who don't come from money, and lack the bank of mum and dad.[5]  LongView has grown to become a recognised industry leader[6] in residential property buying and management and now, through its Shared Equity Fund (a form of equity sharing) is pioneering the development of a funds management to already existing dwelling assets to solve Australia's property market's affordability crisis by co-investing alongside homebuyers.[7][8]

Thornley was founding chair of Per Capita and National Secretary of the Australian Fabian Society.[9] He was a board member of the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Chifley Research Centre, was a founding director of GetUp!. Along with his wife, he founded LookSmart, the first Australian dot-com company listed on the NASDAQ. During the dot-com bubble, his stake in the company was worth almost $1 billion, but its value declined by 99% as the bubble burst.[10] Thornley made an attempt to buy LookSmart's search engine competitor Google during its early days[11] but founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin rejected the offer.

Thornley is a co-founder of the Goodstart Consortium - a social enterprise that owns the largest childcare network in the world (formerly called ABC Learning). His vision for Goodstart was to ensure Australia's children have the best possible start in life by providing the learning, development and wellbeing outcomes they need.[12] He was formerly the CEO of Better Place Australia and Global CEO of Better Place LLC, which developed electric cars and the charging or switching stations to support them.[13][14] Thornley served in public office for two years as the Labor member of the Victorian Legislative Council for the Southern Metropolitan Region, and as Parliamentary Secretary to Premiers Bracks and Brumby.[15]

  1. ^ Treadgold, John (1 March 2022). "Evan Thornley Has A Radical New Vision for the Business of Real-Estate in Australia". OnImpact. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  2. ^ "Evan Thornley". longview.com.au. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  3. ^ Lewis, Peter (30 May 2023). "The housing crisis threatens to unleash Australia's darker angels. Peter Dutton is intent on exploiting it". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  4. ^ "Is Australia the worst country in the world to be a renter?". ABC listen. 14 September 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  5. ^ "Australia one of worst countries in developed world to be a renter". 9now.nine.com.au. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  6. ^ "REIV promises ethics action for industry during annual awards night - realestate.com.au". www.realestate.com.au. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  7. ^ "LongView launches shared equity fund". Financial Standard. 1 May 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  8. ^ Saffer, Carol. "Entrepreneur Evan Thornley tackles housing problems". www.australianjewishnews.com. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  9. ^ "Evan Thornley". The Wheeler Centre. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  10. ^ "Looksmart chief upsets board". The Age. 26 June 2002. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  11. ^ "We've been duped by Big Tech says the Aussie who tried to buy Google". Australian Financial Review. 2 January 2020. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  12. ^ "Bold Goodstart not-for-profit experiment pays off". Goodstart Corporate. 29 August 2017. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  13. ^ "Better Place: Israel's electric car start-up killed by its own success". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 20 May 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  14. ^ "Thornley moves up in Better Place". The Sydney Morning Herald. 3 October 2012. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  15. ^ "Evan Thornley | Parliament of Victoria". new.parliament.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 27 November 2023.