Anthony Pratt
Pratt sits on the National Board of the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky, and is also active in charity organizations throughout Australia and the United States. In 1998, he arranged for Muhammad Ali to visit Australia for the Australian Football League grand final, as well as for a subsequent trip two years later.[29] Pratt is a member of the Climate Group, an international environmental group founded by former British prime minister Tony Blair. He has been honoured for his efforts by Mikhail Gorbachev‘s Global Green USA and Ted Turner‘s Captain Planet Foundation. Pratt is a member of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.[12]
In 2007, Pratt committed to former President Clinton’s Global Initiative to invest more than US$1 billion over the ensuing decade in recycling infrastructure and clean energy.[12] He fulfilled his pledge five years early.[30] In 2009, Pratt was honored by the New York-based Foreign Policy Association with its Corporate Social Responsibility Award.[31][32]
Since taking over the company, Pratt has taken a strong interest in sustainable agriculture, food security, and water issues, stating that his motivation is 70% of his Australian customers are in the food and beverage sector.[33]
In April 2013, Pratt gave the keynote address at the Global Food Forum, an international conference on food security, which he organized in partnership with The Australiannewspaper. He said it was possible for Australia to quadruple its current food production, through greater support for farmers and food companies, and to eventually feed 200 million people.[34] The conference attracted leading political, agribusiness, food-industry, and academic figures.[35] In October 2016, Pratt was the founding sponsor of The Wall Street Journal‘s inaugural U.S.-based Global Food Forum.[36][37][38][39][40] In his opening remarks, Pratt called on food industry leaders to start a national conversation about how to double the size of the American food industry to US$1.8 trillion and thereby create millions of new jobs under the slogan “Export Food, Not Jobs”.[41][42][43] At subsequent Global Food Forum dinners during 2017 in Los Angeles and Chicago, Pratt continued to advocate for increased U.S. food exports.
In September 2013, Pratt was elected an executive member of the Australia-Japan Business Cooperation Committee, a group dedicated for more than 50 years to strengthening ties between the two countries.[44] In October 2013, Prime Minister Tony Abbott invited Pratt on an official visit to Indonesia – the first overseas trip by the incoming leader.[45] Later that month, Pratt announced that former advisor to President Obama and the outgoing US Ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, would join the Pratt Group advisory board.[46]
In 2013, Pratt was awarded an honorary PhD by Monash University, for an “outstanding career of achievement and service to philanthropy, business and commerce.”[47]
He is also a member of the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, which seeks to strengthen and deepen the ties between Australian and American leaders.[48]
In 2017, Anthony Pratt attended Vice President Mike Pence’s business roundtable at the Vice President’s official residence in Washington D.C.[49] Also in 2017, Anthony Pratt became a member of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private Florida club.[50] Pratt and his family split time between New York City and Melbourne.[17] Pratt is Jewish.[4]