Speakers Profile - Nene King










Travels From:
Melbourne

Fee Range: B


* AdNews named Nene media executive of the year
* Good Weekend listed her as one of Australia's most powerful women
* MediaWeek named her one of the media people of the decade - the only
woman

Nene was the first woman to sit on Kerry Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Board which controls the Nine Network and Australian Consolidated Press which publishes close to 90 magazines today.

Her years as editor of Woman's Day are arguably the greatest success story in modern Australian journalism. In just four years she increased the circulation of the Day by 400,000 sales every week, and established it as Australia's number one weekly magazine.

The press called her the Queen of the Magazines as she presided over hundreds of famous and infamous exclusives. These included photos of Fergie getting her toes sucked (1.4 million Australians bought the magazine that week); the death of Princess Diana; Stuart Diver, the miracle of Thredbo; Hazel Hawke's poignant story of her split with Bob; Susie O'Neill's marriage; Ray Martin's mid-life crisis; Elvis Presley's first grandchild; Michael Jackson's marriage and Liz Taylor's last marriage.

For 25 years Nene was at the heart of magazines, then on May 24, 1996, her life changed forever. Her husband, journalist Patrick Bowring died in a tragic diving accident. She waved goodbye to him in the morning and at the end of the day all she had was his gym bag full of the clothes he had worn that day. No body, no explanation!!

Then began three years of grief, anger, fear and desperation as Nene struggled to run a multi-million dollar magazine empire and to accept that the love of her life, her reason for living, her great inspiration, wasn't coming home.

Career Highlights:

* 2 years in TV and magazines in London
* 3 years in Hong Kong reporting for an afternoon newspaper called the China Mail
* 9 years at New Idea . . . chief reporter, news editor, deputy editor
*January 18, 1988 . . . named editor of Woman's Day
* 1994 promoted to editorial director of Woman's Day and Australian Women's Weekly
* 1996 promoted to group publisher (in other words, the big boss) of Woman's Day, Women's Weekly and New Weekly (now NW)
* April 1, 1999 ended her magical chapter in magazines

Plus

A very public facelift featured in the Australian Women's Weekly and on Nine Network's Good Medicine. Nene talks openly about this extraordinary operation and how it changed her life.
Appeared regularly on TV: Midday Show, Bert Newton, Beauty and the Beast. Recently the subject of This is Your Life and the ABC's Australian Story and Burke's Backyard.

Nene works for the RSPCA. She is also spokesperson for Queensland's Hope for the Children Foundation and helps to promote the annual Noosa Beach Party Weekend. She recently joined Peter Wilkinson, CEO of David Jones, for a series of seminars (in capital cities) for Westfield Shopping Centres.


The Presentation

Nene's powerpoint presentation is the story of how she survived the cut-throat competitive magazine business, how she didn't cope when her husband died, how she crashed through the glass ceiling . . . its upside and its downside . . . and she gives good gossip on some of her famous and infamous covers! She also reveals her addiction to prescription drugs – and her experiences with narcotics anonymous.