Award-winning journalist and author Mr Rowan Callick will take up an appointment as an Industry Fellow with the Griffith Asia Institute from July.
“We are delighted to have Rowan work with us,” GAI Director Professor Caitlin Byrne said. “His experience and knowledge of the region is an incredible asset to the Institute.
“As Industry Fellow, Rowan will help to facilitate conversations and build links between the Institute and the business community”.
In acknowledging his appointment, the acclaimed writer said he relishes the chance to engage with industry representatives and further establish Griffith’s ties and impact throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
“The opportunity to connect with the business community through dialogue that holds immediate and practical relevance to their engagement in the Asia-Pacific is timely and important given the rapid pace of change in the region,” Mr Callick said.
After graduating with a BA Honours from Exeter University, Mr Callick spent 10 years in Papua New Guinea working as general manager of a local publishing, printing and retail group before moving to Australia.
He then worked for The Australian Financial Review for 20 years, including four years as China Correspondent, based in Hong Kong. He joined The Australian, as China Correspondent, at the start of 2006.
After three years in Beijing, he became The Australian‘s Asia-Pacific Editor and then returned to Beijing as China Correspondent, from March 2016 to April 2018. He remains a columnist for The Australian.
Mr Callick has been a member of the National Advisory Council on Aid Policy, the Australia Indonesia Institute board, the Foreign Minister’s Foreign Affairs Council, and the advisory councils of Melbourne University’s Asian Law Centre and La Trobe University’s China Studies Centre. He remains a member of the latter.
He has authored Comrades & Capitalists: Hong Kong Since the Handover, Channar: A Landmark Venture in Iron Ore, and Party Time: Who Runs China and How. All three have been published in both English and Chinese.
He has won the Graham Perkin Award for Australian Journalist of the Year, and two Walkley Awards, for coverage of Hong Kong in 1997 and of China in 2007. He was appointed in 2013 as a fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. In 2015, he was awarded the OBE for services to journalism and journalist training in Papua New Guinea.