Key, John Phillip

▪ 2009

born Aug. 9, 1961, Auckland, N.Z.

      When John Phillip Key took the oath of office as New Zealand prime minister on Nov. 19, 2008, he was fulfilling the second of two childhood ambitions. The first was to become a millionaire, a goal he achieved as an international investment banker between 1985 and his entry into politics in 2002 as a National Party backbench MP. At that time he had undisputed personal wealth exceeding $NZ 50 million (about U.S.$25 million).

      Key was the son of an English father and a Jewish mother who fled Austria for the U.K. in 1939; the couple married in 1948 and immigrated to New Zealand, eventually settling in Auckland. When Key's father died in 1969, the family moved to Christchurch, where they lived in a state rental house and Key's mother worked as a night porter and cleaner to repay accumulated debt. At age eight or nine, Key told his two older sisters that he intended to make a million dollars and become prime minister. He did well at Burnside High School, where he shone in public speaking, debating, and economics, and studied accountancy at the University of Canterbury, from which he graduated with a B.Comm in 1983, the year before his marriage to fellow student Bronough Irene Dougan.

      After Prime Minister David Lange's 1984–87 Labour government floated the New Zealand dollar, Key quit his job with a sportswear clothing manufacturer and took a position as a foreign-exchange trader in Wellington for Australia-based Elders Merchant Finance. In 1988 he was lured to the newly established Bankers Trust in Auckland, famously telling the chief executive that “I want your job” and sleeping with a Reuters screen beside his bed.

      Beginning in 1995, Key worked in Singapore, London, and Sydney for American investment bankers Merrill Lynch, assuming responsibility for various business units, notably international foreign-exchange and European bond and derivative trading. He developed a reputation as a smart risk taker, and in 1999 he joined the foreign-exchange committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He also took management studies courses at Harvard University.

      Key returned to New Zealand in 2001 to stand for Parliament for the National Party. He won the Helensville (Auckland) seat the following year with a narrow majority of 1,589 votes; three years later he retained his seat with a majority of 12,778. In November 2006 Key, then party spokesman for finance, was elected to succeed departing National leader Don Brash. Key reinvigorated the party, with a renewed emphasis on education, reduced taxes, and an end to the “growing government-funded culture of dependency.” In the Nov. 8, 2008, general election, the National Party took 58 of the 122 seats contested, and 11 days later Key achieved his boyhood ambition of becoming prime minister.

Neale McMillan

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