Peter Wilson Yates AM

Peter Yate’s career began in investment banking advising on a number of leading commercial transactions, and large scale projects in the transport and telecommunications sectors, and privatisations in Australia.

He joined Macquarie Bank in 1985 to work on public company mergers and acquisitions including defending the purchase of BHP from Robert Holmes a Court. Peter acquired extensive knowledge of the transport industry and was an advisor to Qantas, ANL and Linfox.

In 1993, Peter led Macquarie Bank’s gaming and entertainment team to the successful acquisition of Melbourne Casino Licence by Crown Limited, and the restructuring of the Victorian Racing Industry, resulting in the establishment of Tabcorp.

In 2001, Peter was appointed CEO of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) working closely with Kerry Packer. He then became CEO of Allco Equity partners, from 2004 to July 2007.

During the past 15 years Peter has taken up a large portfolio of Directorships. He is currently Deputy Chair of Myer Family Investments Ltd & Director of AIA.

He is Chairman of the Royal Institution of Australia, the Australian Science Media Centre, the Faculty of Business and Economics at Melbourne University, the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Shared Value Project, Deputy Chairman of Asialink, Director of the Royal Children’s Hospital, the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNNSW, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the NHMRC Centre for Personalised Immunology at ANU.

Peter has been a director of many high profile companies. These include PBL, Crown Ltd, Foxtel Ltd, The Nine Network, Ninemsn, Ticketek, Veda Ltd, Oceania Capital Partners and the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

Peter holds a Doctorate of the University from Murdoch University, a Master’s degree from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and a Commerce degree from Melbourne. He is fluent in Japanese, having studied at Keio University in Tokyo.

In 2011 Peter was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for service to education, to the financial services industry and to a range of arts, science and charitable organisations.

During the 1970’s Peter and his three brothers attended BGS and their father, Bill Yates was on the teaching staff. The Bill Yates classroom in the Secondary School Library is named in his honour.