Evan Thornley
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Evan Thornley (born 1965), Australian businessman, was a founder (with his wife, Tracey Ellery) and former Chairman and CEO of internet company Looksmart Ltd. He founded predecessor businesses in 1995 with an investment from Reader's Digest. He resigned as CEO in October 2002 and as Chairman in July 2004. He and Ellery now own progressive social policy publisher Pluto Press Australia. Thornley is a member of the Australian Labor Party and is believed to harbor political ambitions.
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Early Life
Thornley was raised by his mother on a pension in Gosford, New South Wales. He went to local state schools until Year 11, when he moved to Melbourne to live with his father. He completed Year 12 at private school Scotch College on a full scholarship. In 1991, Thornley graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws. From 1991 to 1995, Thornley was a junior consultant at McKinsey and Company, a management consultancy firm. Several partners in the firm were believed to be unhappy with Thornley approaching their client Reader's Digest with his Looksmart investment while still employed by McKinsey. In 1992, he applied for and was rejected for employment with Australian Labor politician John Dawkins, who was then Commonwealth Treasurer.
Involvement in Politics
At University, Thornley was head of the Student Representative Council and was a founding officer of the National Union of Students.
Thornley was a member of Labor's much derided Knowledge Nation Taskforce, chaired by Barry Jones. The taskforce attracted notoriety when it produces proposals some considered complex and ill-advised. The policy document it published contained inexplicably complex diagrams comprising so many inter-related elements that it attracted the tag "Noodle Nation."
Critics of Knowledge Nation said it labeled Australia second rate and argued that its businesses are unable to withstand global competition. It is a theme Thornley has repeated several times in interviews and speeches in Australia since his return from the United States.
The Australian Treasurer, Peter Costello said the report comprised "big words and jargon like 'dematerialisation'. It recommended a national cadastre, which according to the Collins dictionary, is 'an official register showing details of ownership, boundaries, and value of real property in a district, made for taxation purposes.' No wonder they wanted to use a word no-one understood."
Thornley is also on the board of the Chifley Research Centre, a think tank funded by the ALP and the board of the Brotherhood of St Laurence.
Looksmart
Thornley sold tens of millions of dollars worth of Looksmart shares to mostly small non-institutional investors when his personal shareholding was worth in excess of $1 billion. While selling, he repeatedly asserted that Looksmart's share price was undervalued relative to similar companies, a comment which many analysts did agree with at the time.
Critics say that Looksmart was never itself a success commercially, only briefly enjoying small profits and currently generating massive accumulated losses around $200 million. Thornley's shareholding is worth around $20 million currently, down $980 million from its peak. The current Looksmart CEO has acknowledged that Thornley's strategic error of depending on Microsoft for 70% of its revenue has made restoring the company's fortunes very difficult.
Upset shareholders point to Thornley's continued selling of Looksmart stock, even now it trades between $1 and $1.50 per share as evidence of his lack of support. He plans to sell millions of dollars of stock between October 2004 and November 2005 according to recent announcements. This contradicted previous public assurances that he would never sell at the current "ridiculous" (low) share price.
Evan Thornley's interest in the ALP is argued by some to be inconsistent with certain practices within Looksmart. Looksmart has declared in each annual report since 1999 of its achievement in avoiding employing members of a labor union. Employees complained that company required employees to sign "individual contracts" with fixed terms, significantly diminishing employee rights relative to those enjoyed in an enterprise bargaining agreement. Labor policy condemns similar individual contracts as allowing the misuse of employer power.
External Link
- Thornley's Unhappy Return to Melbourne (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/07/1025667089032.html)
- BRW Young Rich List profile (http://brw.com.au/lists/youngrich2004/profile2004.aspx?Id=179)
- Scotch College profile (http://www.scotch.vic.edu.au/Gscot/gsdec04/34evan.htm)