Helena Carr

Anne Helena John was born in Perak, Malaysia,^[1] the youngest of six children of an Indian father and a Chinese mother.^[2] In 1965, she came to Sydney to study at Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta.^[3] As economics was one of her strongest subjects, she majored in it at the University of Sydney where she was a resident at Sancta Sophia College.^[4]

Carr joined Leigh Mardon, a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Amatil, in 1976, first as a market research officer and then as a product manager. She left in 1981 to join Amatil before returning to Leigh Mardon, as a business development manager and then a division manager,^[5] where she was responsible for a staff of 1,000.^[3]

In 1972, she met Bob Carr on a vacation in Tahiti and the two were married on 24 February 1973.^[6]

Bob Carr became federal president of Young Labor shortly after. Helena Carr started a successful business career and by the 1980s, she was the managing director of Leigh Mardon.^[7] In 1992, Carr and Max Turner partnered with politician Eddie Obeid to offer A$16 million for Offset Alpine. She later pulled out of the deal, leading Obeid to partner instead with Rene Rivkin and Graham Richardson for a successful, $15 million offer.^[8]

Carr and Max Turner later bought Merritt Madden Printing and Advanced Graphics, a commercial printer producing prospectuses, annual reports, and trade magazines. In October 2004, she and Turner sold the business to the New Zealand company Blue Star Print Group.^[7]

In October 2023, Helena Carr died from a brain aneurysm while in Vienna, Austria, aged 77.^[9][10] Her funeral was held at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, on 14 November.^[11]