Matt Joyce - Matthew Joyce

Matthew Joyce was born in Australia in 1965 and grew up on the family farm in the Western District of Victoria. He successfully completed his Higher School Certificate in 1984 and commenced a degree in Economics. Further developing an interest in the property industry he went on to complete a Bachelor of Business in Property in 1991.

Throughout this time Matthew Joyce continued a family history of sporting interest. Both his father and sister represented Australia at the Olympic Games. Matthew Joyce was a successful competitor in the field of athletics, football and rowing. He has competed in numerous sporting events including the City to Surf race in Sydney. More recently his interests have been windsurfing, kayaking and surfing.

Matthew Joyce’s career in the property industry has been highly distinguished. He has worked with major companies across Australia and Internationally. He has also been widely quoted in property journals over a number of projects and subjects. A more personal entry during the development of his career follows:

After studying economics and completing a Bachelor of Business in Property I entered the property industry. I initially worked in Victoria and was lucky to be able to enhance my property career in Europe and Asia before returning to Australia as the Western Australian Managing Director of a major international property group. I later joined Australand as General Manager of Western Australia before taking up a position as Executive General Manager in 2000.

Below is a short list of Matthew Joyce's roles in various companies:

Property Agent - Richard Ellis, Australia, United Kingdom, Spain and Hong Kong
Managing Director - Colliers Jardine, Western Australia
General Manager - Australand Holdings Limited, Western Australia
Executive General Manager Land & Housing - Australand Holdings Limited, Australia
Managing Director - St Hilliers
Managing Director - Dubai Waterfront, Nakheel

Matthew Joyce presented major foresight during his time at Australand. Unlike many of his peers and competitors he recognized and articulated key needs of the city and the community.

Sydney has had quite phenomenal employment growth, which has led to an equally remarkable growth in housing, housing demand and private car use. Sydney is now recognised as an international city and has all the right dynamics to keep on growing. However, if this growth is to continue, people will need affordable places to live. For example, Sydney has created somewhere in the order of 30,000 35,000 new jobs per annum for the last few years. Add natural population increases and migration to this and you have demand of approximately 28,000 plus new homes a year required for Sydney. Overlay the fact that current stock deficiency are in the order of 7,000 dwellings and sufficient serviced zoned land and infill sites only exist to provide 19,000 to 24,000 dwellings per annum, Sydney has a major problem.

In advance of many of his peers, Matthew challenged the industry to address issues of Sustainability. His commitment to this cause is continued and is a hallmark of his professional reputation.

I think the industry is poised to undergo some dramatic changes in the next few years, and in some regards, these changes are already occurring. Two areas in particularly stand out; Economic and Environmental Sustainable Development and the structure of the Industry

There needs to be an established framework for the ecological, social and economic factors associated with the industry on a local, regional and global basis. This is being developed, for example, the Australian National Strategy for ESD developed the concept of the triple bottom line, applying equal status to the environment, economic activity and social consideration. In the future developers will need individual ESD solutions on a project by project basis addressing such issues as design, solar orientation, energy efficiency, material types, resource conservation, resource recycling and building products and the list goes on.

Matthew Joyce’s reputation as a leader in the property industry in Australia gave him international recognition and an offer from Nakheel, Dubai’s second largest Government owned development corporation. He joined the company as Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Waterfront Development, a new town for 1.5m people. This presented possibly the most complex and challenging role for a professional in his industry worldwide. He grew a large business from nothing by hiring like minded professionals from around the world, instilling in them a sense of purpose and personal responsibility. He strove to create a culture of honesty and openness, an immensely difficult task given the differences in work practices between the diverse range of global cultures represented in Dubai. He successfully held his position for three years with tireless effort and personal sacrifice.

Towards the end of 2008, the Global Financial Crisis took its toll on the property industry in Dubai forcing the termination of a vast number of projects and employment contracts. Matthew Joyce’s task was to reduce the scale of development at Dubai Waterfront. On 25 January 2009, Matthew Joyce was detained by Dubai authorities and after several months detention, he received a charge of fraudulent actions compromising the interests of the State. Matthew strongly denied any wrongdoing and was awarded bail in October 2009 to be reunited with his family in Dubai.

Matthew comprehensively won two court cases in two countries which unequivocally established his innocence and proved that he was a victim of an elaborate scheme by Sunland's Chairman, Soheil Abedian and executive David Brown to create a false case against Matthew and others for the "ulterior purpose" of their "own personal and commercial gain.

The Australian proceeding concluded on June 8 when the Supreme Court of Victoria ruled that the case against Matthew ‘failed in all respects’. The judgment cites that evidence of bribery allegations by the prosecution’s witnesses were ‘utterly unreliable, increasingly nonsensical’ and ‘cannot be taken as reliable witnesses of truth’. The judge also ordered Sunland Australia to withdraw their civil claim against Matthew in Dubai as it was found to be an “abuse of process and completely vexatious and oppressive”.

Elements of the claims against him were judged as “a complete fabrication”. Matthew has therefore been cleared of any wrongdoing and the case against him has been dismissed.

The same court also found that “Sunland commenced and continued the present proceeding in willful disregard of known facts and law and also for an ulterior purpose”. The court condemned “Sunlands willingness to implicate Joyce ‘unjustifiably” it what was established as an “invention” by Abedian and Brown of Sunland of a story, which “falsely implicated Matt Joyce in a non-existent fraud”.

The Dubai proceeding concluded on 10th November 2013 when three Judges, including Dubai's Chief Justice emphatically acquitted Matt of all charges with similar, but independant, findings to the Victorian Supreme Court. The three Dubai judges were all equally damming about Sunland and in particular the dishonesty and ulterior motives of its senior executives.

Matthew Joyce Biography

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