Charlie Bass

Charlie Bass is an experienced entrepreneur and business executive. He is best known as a co-founder and major shareholder of Aquila Resources, while in 2016 he took a new direction as the founder and chairman of the Nedlands-based Centre for Entrepreneurial Research and Innovation.

Mr Bass came to Western Australia in 1978 with North American mining company Amax Inc to work on the Mt Newman iron ore project. He established exploration and mining software company Metech in Perth in 1980. Between 1993 and 1997, he was co-founder, major shareholder and managing director of Eagle Mining Corporation, which discovered the successful Nimary gold mine. Charlie co-founded Aquila Resources with Tony Poli in 2000 and helped transition it from a gold explorer to a successful iron ore, coal and manganese developer. It was taken over for $1.4 billion in 2014. Between 2010 and 2013 he was a director of Geopacific Resources.

His other ventures with unlisted companies have included Blazing Wireless, a wireless broadband company focused on the US market, and Toronto-based ESI Exploration Syndicate Inc.

He established the Bass Family Foundation in 2006 to provide education for disadvantaged children, predominantly from rural WA.

Mr Bass was named the 2024 WA Senior Australian of the Year.