Vanessa Stoykov

Tim Costello has lived his life as a man of principle with unswerving values. His authentic and ideologically sound outlook along with his intelligent school of thought has served to emancipate much of Australia’s political and corporate heart.

Many see him as the David Attenborough of humanitarian causes.

In this candid interview Alex Malley explores not only the making of this extraordinary man of the cloth – but also the events that, at times, tested his resolve and the pathways that ultimately lead him to find his own life purpose. Introducing a rare breed, Tim Costello.

Alex Malley

Tim, welcome to The Bottom Line,

Tim Costello

Lovely to be with you.

Alex Malley

2004 you took up the CEO role of World Vision and that takes you into, regardless of the aim of the organisation, it’s a corporate and it’s got complexity and all those things, but again how do you use your skill set as a leader balancing your religious background?

Tim Costello

Well it was a big step for me. So World Vision’s $350 million income bringing in each year, 700 staff, the Word Vision partnership has 45,000 staff around the world in 100 countries in the toughest places so it took a whole set of learning about management, about motivation, about particularly as a leader, recognising that I needed to choose an executive team and help them work in a complementary way to cope with what is really very different cultures housed under one roof in World Vision, a fundraising culture, a sales culture, which is very different to a development poverty culture that’s about empowerment and relationship, and within these different cultures ...