Over the last two decades, Steve has applied his business skills to his many global philanthropic activities, established an internationally renowned global think tank, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) and a private family organisation, The Charitable Foundation, which now has over three million direct beneficiaries. He is a sought after international speaker, has received many international awards and is regularly quoted in the media on various subjects, including global peacefulness, terrorism and social development.

THE PHILANTHROPIST

Steve has always had a strong passion for sustainable development, starting his first project in 1992 which led to the establishment of the The Charitable Foundation (TCF), and works with the poorest communities of the world.

TCF is one of the largest private overseas aid organisations based in Australia, and mainly active in Asia and Africa. It provides life-changing interventions and aims to reach as many people as possible by supporting a variety of projects including emergency and famine relief, environment rehabilitation, housing and the rehabilitation of child soldiers Steve is actively involved in the projects he funds.

A STRONG PROPONENT OF THE STUDY OF PEACE

Steve founded the Institute for Economics and Peace in 2007, an independent global research institute focussed on the relationship between business, peace and economic development. A non-profit and non-partisan organisation, IEP has four areas of global leadership: measuring peace, calculating the economic cost of violence, analysing country level risk and understanding Positive Peace.

IEP is one of the world’s most impactful think tanks. Its research is used by many multi-laterals including the United Nations, World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as well as being included in thousands of university courses around the world.

Steve is the founder of the Global Peace Index, the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness covering 163 countries and independent territories.

Steve currently serves on the President’s Circle for Club de Madrid, the largest forum of democratic former presidents and prime ministers working to strengthen democracy. He is an honorary president for Religion for Peace, the largest organisation in the world working on inter-religious challenges. Steve also sits on a number of other influential not-for-profit boards and is a regular speaker at international forums on conflict, peace, governance and development. 

In 2013, a coalition of Australian Foundations recognised his funding of IEP as one of the 50 most impactful philanthropic gifts in Australia’s history. In the same year, the Action on Armed Violence group, recognised Steve as one of the 100 most influential people in the world on reducing armed violence. 

Steve’s deep commitment to peace has earned him two Nobel Peace Prize nominations. 

THE ENTREPRENEUR 

Steve is the founder of Integrated Research Ltd (IR), an Australian publicly-listed company with a 30-year heritage providing its PROGNOSIS performance monitoring software for business-critical computing and IP telephony environments. 

Through Steve’s direction as CEO and then Chair-man, IR is now one of Australia’s leading IT companies with an impressive world-class customer base. The company’s software is used by many of the world’s top organisations in more than 50 countries, including many of the Global 1000 companies. Steve was a board member of the Australian Information Industry Association for eight years. He also sat on a number of private company and government boards including the Australian Chapter of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBAB), the National Information and Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Alongside his other business activities, in 2001 Steve founded Smarter Capital, a venture capital company that specialises in investing in unique technologies with global applicability.