Born: 1942

Appointed as a Trustee on 17 March 2005

Mr Fairfax joined John Fairfax Limited as a cadet reporter in 1961 shortly after leaving Geelong Grammar School.  He served in various sections of the editorial department for a number of years including Police Rounds, Finance and the Canberra Press Gallery before going to London to act as a correspondent on a number of the Group's publications.

Mr Fairfax spent several months on the Birmingham Evening Mail and returned to Australia via New York where he worked in the Fairfax bureau.  He visited Tokyo and Vietnam on his way back to Sydney in 1967.

He spent several years in the Circulation and Advertising Departments before being appointed Manager in 1976 of The Federal Capital Press of Australia Pty Ltd, the publisher of The Canberra Times.  He returned to Sydney in 1979 as Director of John Fairfax Limited and was appointed Deputy Chairman in 1985.  He resigned all his positions with the Group following the takeover by Tryart Pty Ltd in December 1987.

Mr Fairfax undertook part-time courses at the University of NSW and the Australian National University.  He attended the intermediate management course at The Administrative Staff College, Mount Eliza, in 1976 and attended the Harvard SMP programme at Mt Pelerin in Switzerland in 1979.

Mr Fairfax made several trips overseas on behalf of John Fairfax Limited and has attended conferences in India, the Bahamas, Hong Kong and Edinburgh on behalf of the Commonwealth Press Union.  He was Chairman of the Australian Section from 1987 to 1992.

Following the acquisition of a number of media assets which previously formed part of John Fairfax Limited, Mr Fairfax together with his brother, Mr Timothy Fairfax, and other members of their family formed Marinya Holdings Pty Limited.  Mr Fairfax is Chairman of Marinya Holdings Pty Limited and Chairman of its wholly owned subsidiary, Marinya Media Pty Limited. Marinya Media held 53.5 per cent of the voting shares in Rural Press Limited, a company publishing about 200 newspapers and magazines in Australia, New Zealand and USA.  Mr Fairfax was chairman of Rural Press until it merged with Fairfax Media in 2007.  Together with his son Nicholas, Mr Fairfax is now a non-executive director of Fairfax Media and Marinya holds approximately 14 per cent of the Fairfax shares.

Mr Fairfax's family has rural interests in New South Wales.

He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1994 for service to the media and the community and awarded a Centenary Medal in 2003 for service to Australian society through the media and corporate governance.

Mr Fairfax's hobbies are tennis, golf, cabinet-making, bush walking, photography and fly fishing.

Appointed as a Trustee in March 2005.