Australian Communities Foundation (ACF) warmly welcomes Eric Beecher, our newest Director, who will take up the role of Board Chair after David Murray’s term comes to an end later this year. Eric agreed to take on the role of Chair after an extensive search, and we are delighted that the successful incumbent knows us well. Eric and Sue Beecher and family, established a fund with ACF in 2012, and have been very engaged in the areas of human rights, Indigenous empowerment, pokies reform and public interest journalism.
Eric brings to ACF a progressive media career. Starting in newspapers as a journalist on The Age newspaper in Melbourne, he later worked at The Sunday Times and The Observer in London and The Washington Post in the United States. In 1984, at age 33, he became the youngest-ever editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, and in 1987 was appointed editor-in-chief of the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper group. In 1990 he became a founder, CEO and major shareholder in The Text Media Group, a public company which produced newspapers, magazines and books, which was acquired by Fairfax Media in 2003. In 2003 he formed Private Media Partners, which acquired crikey.com.au in 2005. Since then he has been a founding shareholder and chairman of three further online media ventures: SmartCompany.com.au, EurekaReport.com.au and BusinessSpectator.com. He was also chairman of The Wheeler Centre from 2008 until 2017. In 2000 he delivered the annual Andrew Olle Media Lecture and in 2007 was awarded the Walkley Award for Journalistic Leadership.
We are delighted to welcome Eric into this important leadership role and we look forward to providing an opportunity for you to meet him at our upcoming events.