Steve Killelea

Who is Steve Killelea?

Stephen Killelea AM is an Australian IT entrepreneur. He began his career, after doing a crash course in computing and working for a computer manufacturer, by developing a product for computer systems management that became internationally successful and led him to set up a US company, Software Products, that went public.

In August 1988, Killelea formed the Australian company Integrated Research, which was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2000. The company's main business is systems management for international corporations such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express; the New York, London and Hong Kong stock exchanges; and most of the world's ATMs. Having stepped down as chief executive November 2004, he is still chairman of the company that now branches into the field of internet telephony. Killelea also has an IT venture capital fund.

He set up the Charitable Foundation in 2000, which is one of Australia's biggest private overseas aid providers, spending over five million A$ in 2008.

Killelea is the creative force behind the Global Peace Index study, launched in May 2007, that attempts to rank the world's nations’ and regions’ peacefulness. The Index is endorsed by the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter. He is the founder of the Institute for Economics and Peace which is "analysing the impact of peace on sustainability, defining the 'Peace Industry', estimating the value of peace to the world economy, and uncovering the social structures and social attitudes that are at the core of peaceful societies". In 2013, Steve Killelea’s founding of IEP was recognized as one of the 50 most impactful philanthropic gifts in Australia’s history by a coalition including the Myer Family Company, The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund, Pro Bono Australia, Swinburne University and Philanthropy Australia. He is also notable as being Australia's largest individual donor to overseas aid. He sits on the advisory board of the Washington DC based Alliance for Peacebuilding and is a memebr of the Presidents Circle of the Club of Madrid.