09 Feb 2021
Donor in the spotlight – Fiona Geminder, VISY
WHAT INFLUENCED YOUR CAREER AND LED YOU TO PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS?
I grew up in a family business. My grandparents founded the business in 1948. My parents, most notably my father, took over the packing business in 1969 and now my brother, my sister and I own VISY; inheriting it when my father died in 2009. I always knew I would go into the family business. Before I joined VISY, I worked in advertising and marketing in London, New York and Melbourne and I also completed a Law degree at Monash. I was born into business and I bring my own take on it to the executive team.
WHAT INSPIRES YOUR PHILANTHROPY?
Philanthropy runs in our family. My parents established the Pratt Foundation in 1978 when I was just a teenager. Like many immigrants who had become successful in Australia, they had a strong belief in giving back to the community. I was surrounded by this from a very young age and it is something that I instil in my own children who are already active philanthropists. It is in our DNA. VISY staff and customers are a constant inspiration to me. A big focus of my philanthropy are the VISY customer and employee’s local and national philanthropic initiatives – from fun runs all the way up to medical research and legal aid.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO GENEROUSLY SUPPORT THE DOHERTY INSTITUTE?
Professor Sharon Lewin AO and I have been friends for decades. She is a remarkable medical researcher so this latest collaboration with the Pratt Foundation makes a lot of sense. We began the conversation over coffee and she spoke about the latest research she was doing in HIV cure, which sparked my interest. I then came to the Doherty Institute to see first-hand what she and her team were working on.
WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE THROUGH YOUR SUPPORT OF THE DOHERTY INSTITUTE?
Once I saw first-hand what Sharon’s team was doing, I wanted to support two projects in particular: New ways to ‘shock’ – a patent for latency-reversing drugs; and better ways to ‘kill’ by harnessing the immune system, moving these discoveries into clinical trials. The reason a cure for HIV remains elusive is because the virus goes into hiding, what is termed, ‘HIV latency’. One HIV cure strategy is called ‘shock and kill’, the philosophy of which is if you can ‘shock’ the virus out of its hiding place, you can then ‘kill’ it, resulting in a cure.
This article was first published in the Celebrating Five Years of the Doherty Institute Impact Report.