News

Visionary Businessman Gifts $2.5M to Teach Ethics in Business

Media Release, Thursday 15 July 2004

Retired stockbroker Mr John Gourlay and his wife Louise have established a $2.5 million trust fund at Trinity College in the University of Melbourne to advance teaching of ethics in business

The fund will be used to bring an internationally distinguished lecturer to teach ethics in business jointly at Trinity College and the Melbourne Business School, for one term each year, in perpetuity.

The Gourlay Visiting Professor of Ethics in Business will teach a business ethics subject to MBA students at Melbourne Business School, speak at public functions and seminars at Trinity College and the University of Melbourne, and interact with students and academic staff at all these institutions. The search for outstanding candidates will be worldwide.

“It is my firm belief – and the inspiration for establishing the Visiting Professorship – that the exercise of uncompromising integrity and morality, as well as being intrinsically desirable, delivers improved and more certain business outcomes,” says Gourlay, “Louise and I are excited by the value we hope this professorship will impart to the ongoing business community.”

The Warden of Trinity College, Professor Donald Markwell, has described the Gourlays’ action as “a uniquely important and extraordinarily generous measure to promote debate about ethical conduct in business”.

“This has the potential to highlight for current and future business leaders, and other opinion leaders, the importance of integrity and other ethical principles in business relationships”, Professor Markwell said.

Professor Ian Harper, Acting Director and Dean of Melbourne Business School agrees, “Ethical business practice is a core value of MBS. Growing public disquiet about high-profile lapses in business ethics underlines the timeliness of the Gourlays’ welcome initiative.

The opportunity to expose our MBA students to world-class instruction from a leading expert in this field will not only enhance their learning experience but influence their outlook on business and its proper role in society.”

The creation of the Gourlay Visiting Professorship of Ethics in Business will be announced at the 3rd World Congress of the International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics (ISBEE) being held from 14 to 17 July at the University of Melbourne. This is the most comprehensive conference on business ethics ever held in Australia.

Professor Tony Coady, co-Chair of the Congress, and Professorial Fellow in Applied Ethics in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), which is co-sponsoring the conference, says: “The Gourlay Visiting Professorship is an exciting new development for business ethics in Australia.

It provides the opportunity for distinguished overseas academics and business leaders to share their experience with concerned Australians, and for students to learn from the interaction of such visitors with local academics.”

The Gourlays have entrusted their gift to Trinity College confident that, as a “serious educational institution in pursuit of excellence,” and “an institution which produces leaders,” it is the appropriate body to “help produce leaders who are aware of the importance of ethics in all business dealings.”

Background on Mr John Gourlay Available upon request

For more information contact:
Kristy Jacobs
Media Liaison
Melbourne Business School
(03) 9349 8279
0417 316 599
k.jacobs@mbs.edu

Mrs Rosemary Sheludko
Media Liaison
Trinity College
(03)9348 7148
0412 110 550
rsheludko@trinity.unimelb.edu.au