David Murray (Australian businessman)

Prior to his appointment to the Future Fund, Murray was the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Bank between 1992 and 2005. In Murray's 13 years as Chief Executive, the Commonwealth Bank transformed from a partly privatised bank with a market capitalisation of $6 billion in 1992 to a $49 billion integrated financial services company,[2] generating in the process total shareholder returns (including gross dividend reinvestment) at a compound annual growth rate of over 24 per cent, one of the highest total returns of any major bank in Australia.[3]

Murray holds a Bachelor of Business from the NSW Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration, commenced at Macquarie University and completed at the International Management Institute, Geneva. He holds an honorary PhD from Macquarie University and is a Fellow of the University of Technology, Sydney. He is an old boy of St Aloysius' College, Sydney.

In 2007 Murray was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to the finance sector nationally and internationally through strategic leadership and policy development, to education, particularly fostering relations between educational institutions and business and industry, and to the community as a supporter of and fundraiser for cultural and church organisations.[4]

In May 2018, Murray was appointed chairman of AMP Limited.[5]

Murray has made public comments on attempts to mitigate climate change.[6][7][8][9]. Against a backdrop of increasingly severe 2013 bush fires, he slandered an Australian group of scientists who he said lacked any "integrity" after they attributed the disasters to increased carbon emissions. This prompted the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society to publicly declare they were "disturbed" by his statements.[10]

As of 2019, Murray is chair of The Butterfly Foundation[11] which claims to be a "charitable" organisation aimed at helping people with eating disorders. The organisation regularly appears within articles propagating the idea that vegan diets are an eating disorder.[12][13][14][15]

Murray is also an Ambassador of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.[16] which claims to be a charitable organisation aimed at helping people most damaged and displaced by Australia's mining sector. This would be the same group who are particularly endangered by the effects of climate change.[17] The AIEF is partnered with various corporations including BHP[18] which describes itself as "a world-leading resources company [that] extracts and process minerals, oil and gas"[19].