Professor Allan Fels AO
Professor Allan Fels is best known as former Chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and its predecessor bodies, the Trade Practices Commission and the Prices Surveillance Authority from 1989 until 2003.
Professor Fels has had a three track career – as an academic, chiefly at Monash University; as a government regulator and advisor; and as a leader in the field of mental health reform.
On the academic track, he was Professor of Administration and Director of the Monash Graduate School of Management from 1984 until 1989 and Senior Lecturer in Economics from 1973 until 1984.
Prior to that, he was a Research Fellow in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Cambridge where he wrote The British Prices and Incomes Board published by Cambridge University Press.
He is currently an adjunct professor at Monash University in the Faculty of Business and Economics, a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne and chairs the Advisory Board of the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University.
Following his retirement from the ACCC, Professor Fels was Foundation Dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) from 2003 until 2013. ANZSOG provides training for top level public servants in Australia and New Zealand and has also included much leadership from him in conducting and teaching high level government officials from China, India and other countries.
On the government track Professor Fels, aside from his ACCC work, has served in numerous regulatory positions and has conducted many high profile public inquiries for Commonwealth and State governments from both political sides. At the international level he has held important positions at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Competition Network and worked for the UN, the ILO and the World Bank.
Regarding mental health Professor Fels was a Commissioner of the Royal Commission into Mental Health in Victoria. He is the former Chair of the Australian National Mental Health Commission, patron of numerous mental health organisations including Mental Health Council of Australia, Mental Health Victoria, Sane Australia, and the winner of the prestigious 2017 National Mental Health Prize Award.
He also chairs the Haven Foundation which provides accommodation, support and care for persons with severe, persistent mental illness and is a Board member of Mind Australia.
He chairs the Visy Australasia Governance Board (Australia’s largest private business).
He chairs the Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI) since 2019.
He is the author of numerous publications in the field of competition law and policy, and is the subject of a biography by Fred Brenchley, Allan Fels: A Portrait of Power (published by John Wiley in 2003 and in Chinese by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2014) and authored a book in 2019, Tough Customer (published by Melbourne University Press).
He was awarded the Order of Australia (AO) in 2001.