Philip Wollen is a global animal-rights crusader, humanitarian activist, philanthropist and motivational speaker, all in one. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 ‘For service to international humanitarian relief and to animal welfare, particularly through the establishment of the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust’. He is the winner of The Australian Humanitarian Award 2006 and was Australian of Year (Victoria), 2007. Phil passed out from Cotton’s in 1967 (Pope House) as a third-generation Cottonian. He is the nephew of Air Marshal Mally Wollen (Retd.), Old Cottonian and Patron of the General Thimayya Lecture series.

Aged 34, Phil was Vice President of Citibank, the largest financial institution in the world, working in Melbourne, Sydney, Manila, Singapore, Bangkok, London, New York, and Los Angeles. He specialised in Corporate Finance and was rated first among the Top 40 executives in Australia by one of Australia’s leading business journals. However, in the early 90’s he gave it all up for his altruistic pursuits, which have earned international acclaim.

In 1989, Phil established Chapel Chase Corporation, a private investment bank specialising in corporate structuring and fund-raising. Phil is the sole owner of the Chapel Chase Group, which has a number of subsidiaries. He has also established a private philanthropic trust called the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust (named after his mother and grandmother) with a view to help needy children and animals. All the funds in the Trust are accumulated profits the Philip Wollen Group of Companies, and the Trust is a vehicle for carrying out his noble pursuits.

Interestingly many of the companies of the Philip Wollen Group are named after the founder’s experiences at Cottons including The Bishop Cotton Investment Trust and a commercial property trust called The Pope House Investment Trust! In fact, the footnote on the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust letterhead even reads Nec Dextrorsum Nec Sinistrorsum. Phil’s colleagues suspect that the name “Chapel Chase Corporation” is commemorative of the Chapel at Cottons.

Phil has been an inveterate student attending a number of universities at under-graduate and post graduate levels. He studied Economics, Accounting, Applied Finance, and Law at Adelaide University and Melbourne University Law School. He lectured in Corporate Finance around the world. Phil lives in Melbourne and spends part of his free time on the golf course. Phil’s exceptionally private and self-effacing nature only adds to the mystique of his exemplary career.

Philip was a Cottonian from 1955 to 1967. He was a senior prefect, a State silver and bronze medallist in the State Schools Athletics Championships.

He matriculated in Australia, where he was Deputy Head Prefect, School Valedictorian, and set an athletics record that still stands 40 years later. He was a keen tennis player, runner, skydiver and golfer. . . . playing off a single figure handicap within 12 months of taking up the game. He was an official of the Tiger Woods vs Greg Norman match at the Presidents Cup.

Today, he privately supports 350 humanitarian projects for children, animals and the environment in 40 countries - schools, shelters, sanctuaries, orphanages, clinics, ambulances, bio gas plants and hospitals. One project, Kindness House in Melbourne, is 40,000 square feet and has 300 highly qualified young people doing incredible things for children, animals, refugees and the environment.

He is the patron and sits on the International Advisory Boards of many NGOs around the world. He will not be showing film footage of his work today. When he did so in the past, many in the audience suffered emotional breakdowns.

His book, “Tell me. . . and tell me the Truth” was written for Nelson Mandela and presented to Heads of Government, Nobel Prize Winners and leaders of all the major faiths.

The Australian writer, Claudette Vaughan wrote in “Man and his Mission “Some people would nominate Nelson Mandela as the most outstanding person alive. My vote would go to Philip Wollen."

“Cry” journal, written in Russian by the Leo Tolstoy Centre of Ethics, depicted the Top 100 vegetarians in world history. Amongst depictions of Aristotle, Buddha, Plato, St. Francis of Assisi, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Einstein, Leo Tolstoy, Pythagoras, Voltaire, Bernard Shaw, Albert Schweitzer, and Leonardo da Vinci was a picture of Philip Wollen.

For more on Phil, please visit www.kindnesstrust.com