Kim McKay

Early life

Kim McKay was born in Sydney to Francis Gordon (deceased 2009) and Coral McKay. She was educated at Mackellar Girls’ High School and attended the University of Technology(UTS) where she graduated with a BA Communications degree majoring in journalism, public relations and sociology (1981).

Career

Her career has focused on adventure pursuits and the environment – she was a project manager on all four BOC Challenge solo around the world yacht races in the 1980s and 90s; a media representative on the APSA World Pro Surfing tour in the 1980s; executive director of Discovery Channel Eco-Challenge in Australia, Morocco and Argentina in the late 1990s; and in recent years, part of National Geographic research and filming expeditions to Peru, Egypt and India.

In 1989, after helping stage the historic Clean Up Sydney Harbour Day where 40,000 people turned out, Kim co-founded Clean Up . with solo yachtsman Ian Kiernan. She served as Deputy Chairwoman for 20 years (1989–2009), helping direct the growth of the organization. Today, Clean Up Australia is one of the largest community environmental projects in Australia annually attracting more than half a million volunteers.

Following the success of Clean Up Australia, in 1992 she co-founded Clean Up the World, securing partnership with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and international corporate support. The program now operates in over 100 countries and annually involves some 30 million participants. McKay told the ABC radio that ‘The belief that everyone can make a difference is a driving theme behind my actions’.

In 2004 Kim returned to Australia after almost seven years working in the United States in cable television for two non-fiction channels, Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channels International (NGCI). She joined NGCI as Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications in June 2000.

Since then, Kim has co-created The Genographic Project with population geneticist Dr Spencer Wells for National Geographic. One of the largest and wide-ranging projects in National Geographic’s 120-year history, the five year+ global study traces humankind’s migratory history during the past 60,000 years and actively involves the general public through the purchase of a DNA cheek-swab test kit to identify an individual’s deep ancestry. Kim conceived the project with Dr. Wells and secured global corporate support from IBM. To date, more than 360,000 test kits have been sold raising millions of dollars for the Genographic Project’s Legacy Fund to benefit cultural preservation and education projects in indigenous communities around the world.

McKay was the founder and former managing director of Momentum2, a Sydney-based social marketing and communications consultancy working on projects for National Geographic Society, Qantas and Harpo Productions, and managed the media and publicity for Oprah Winfrey’s tour of Australia in 2011.

On 19 February 2014, the NSW Minister for the Arts, The Hon. George Souris MP and the president of the Australian Museum Board of Trustees, Catherine Livingstone, announced that Kim had been appointed the 17th director/curator of the Australian Museum, to succeed Mr Frank Howarth who announced his retirement in October 2013.

Publications

She is the co-author with Jenny Bonnin of five books published in Australia (ABC Books) and in the United States (National Geographic Books)

Media

Kim is a regular media commentator on practical environmental action and is a regular public speaker addressing business and not-for-profit conferences as well as schools & community groups. She has presented a series of on-camera ‘True Green Tips’ for Sky News in Australia (part of the weekly Eco Report in 2009), co-authored a weekly ‘True Green’ column for the Sunday Telegraph ‘Body and Soul’ newspaper in 2007 and was named in G Magazine’s Top 20 Australian Eco Heroes list in the November 2009 issue. She also presents a weekly True Green radio spot for ABC regional radio in NSW. A career highlight was as MC of the only media conference during Oprah's Ultimate Australian Adventure at the Sydney Opera House in December 2010.

Not-for-profit roles

Kim’s current not-for-profit roles include: Chair, Editorial Advisory Committee, CSIRO’s ECOS Magazine (Australia’s oldest environmental publication); foundation board member of the Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS); a board member of the EYE Foundation; and a committee member of the Genographic Project Legacy Fund. She is also an Ambassador for the 1 Million Women campaign.

In the past she served for 20 years on the Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World boards as Deputy Chairwoman; was a steering committee member of the National Business Leader’s Forum on Sustainable Development; a board member of the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at Georgetown University, Washington, DC and a communications advisory committee member of the National Breast Cancer Foundation. She was a member of the Community Relations Committee for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Bid; voluntarily helped coordinate the Million Mom March in Washington DC in 2000; and was one of the co-founders of the Short-handed Sailing Association of Australia. In January 2008 she traveled to Antarctica as part of the Expedition Team, lecturing on board the Australian-based cruise ship, ORION.

Awards and honors