Mayor Ben Keneally

Mayor Keneally was elected on Saturday September 8 2012.  He is only the second person to hold the Office of Mayor of the City of Botany Bay, following the proclamation in 1996.  He replaces Mayor Hoenig who served as Mayor from 1982 to 2012.

He is married to Kristina, and has two sons Brendan and Daniel.  The Mayor and his family have lived in the City of Botany Bay for the past 12 years. 

Mayor Keneally grew up in Gladesville, the oldest of five children born to John and Jane Keneally.  He attended high school at Holy Cross College in Ryde, and then went on to study for a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Law at Sydney University graduating with first class honours.

While studying he realised his great passion was learning how to use economics, the law and policy and management skills to make organisations – especially government organisations - more efficient and effective servants of the people for whom they are meant to work.  He saw good, visionary policy and government administration as the key to delivering social justice and the opportunity to build a good life for the whole community.

In order to pursue his interest in good management and administration, he joined a company that specialized in solving difficult problems for large organisations, to learn how to do that and take that learning to the public sector. After nine years with The Boston Consulting Group, including three based in Chicago, he left to pursue the opportunity of working in Public Policy.

He worked as a Senior Executive in NSW Housing, where he helped drive a number of key reforms.  From there he joined the Department of Premier and Cabinet under Morris Iemma. While there, he developed and implemented the first NSW State Plan – a whole of government strategic planning document that has remained in place through even a change in Government.  He also led a number of projects to reduce crime and improve public transport, all of which delivered significant, measurable improvements.

He left the Senior Public Service in 2008 to work in a business with an audacious plan to replace petrol cars with cars that have a swappable battery powered by renewable energy. It’s a business in which he still works.

Interests:

The Mayor is on the Board of Directors of Opportunity International, a charity that provides funding for micro finance loans to poor women in India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

He is also on the Board of Directors of the Randwick Labor Club.

He enjoys spending time with his two sons.

He is an adopted Rabbitohs supporter (having grown up a Tiger but losing the passion during Super League).

He also enjoys photography and bushwalking and reading history.