Alistair Gordon

About us - Alistair Gordon

Managing Director - Australia

B.Sc. Politics and Behaviour in Organisations
(University of Lancaster, UK)

Alistair is currently the Managing Director of HFL’s Australian operations and brings with him many years of CEO-level experience. Given his history of engineering the rapid development of SMEs (small-to-medium-sized enterprises) into fully-fledged regional businesses, he has joined HFL specifically to provide the business and strategic leadership required as the company enters its next growth phase.

Alistair’s leadership career began with a two-year role as President of the Student Union at the University of Lancaster which he slotted into the middle of a degree in Politics and Behaviour in Organisations. This involved managing 60 full-time staff at the tender age of 19.

His career in publishing kicked off with a position based in London working for a Dutch multinational called VNU. From there he was transferred to Melbourne as part of a Joint Venture agreement with Australian Consolidated Press.

In 1991 Alistair set up his own business in Australia called Strategic Publishing Group. The company specialised in business-to-business titles aimed at senior functional managers and published magazines such as MIS (Managing Information Systems), CFO magazine for chief financial officers, and other marketing and chief executive-oriented titles. By the end of the decade the business comprised of 12 magazines circulating in 19 countries across Asia-Pacific, a pan-Asia-Pacific research unit, 150 employees in six offices, and a headquarters in Singapore. In early 2000, the business was acquired by John Fairfax, a large Australian-based publisher.

Alistair was relocated from Singapore back to Australia where he ran all of John Fairfax’s business magazines including Business Review Weekly, Shares, and Personal Investor.

After leaving Fairfax, Alistair established a VC (venture capital) and mentoring business called Mentorvest Partners which advised SME’s on growth strategies.

Two of these assignments turned into investments and executive positions. After consulting to Harbour Future Leaders, Alistair joined the company in his current position in 2007. He also serves as the non-executive chairman of a rapidly-growing mobile applications developer in Sydney.

While he was CEO of Strategic Publishing Group, Alistair was a client of HFL and commissioned various leadership programs specifically tailored to his company’s needs and underpinned by technology transfers from HFL. He was a very active proponent of these projects internally.

Alistair’s over-riding passion has always been to push hard to realise the potential inherent in good businesses and good people. At HFL he is able to indulge fully in this pursuit.