Evan William Thornley (born 1964), is an Australian entrepreneur. Thornley was founding chair of Per Capita and National Secretary of the Australian Fabian Society. He was a board member of the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Chifley Research Centre, was a founding director of GetUp!. Along with his wife, he founded LookSmart, the first Australian dot-com company listed on the NASDAQ. During the dot-com bubble, his stake in the company was worth almost $1 billion, but its value declined by 99% as the bubble burst. He is also a co-founder of the Goodstart Consortium - a social enterprise that owns the largest childcare network in the world (formerly called ABC Learning). He was formerly the CEO of Better Place Australia and Global CEO of Better Place LLC, a now-defunct company which intended to supply electric cars and the charging or switching stations to support them. Thornely has recently started a property management company to better serve the Australian Property Market named LongView. Thornley served in public office for two years as the Labor member of the Victorian Legislative Council for the Southern Metropolitan Region, and as Parliamentary Secretary to Premiers Bracks and Brumby. Background and early career Thornley attended Scotch College, Melbourne and is a graduate of the University of Melbourne. He commenced his university studies in 1983 and served in full-time elected student office as President of the Student Representative Council, and then in the National Union of Students in 1987 and 1988. He completed a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1990, and from 1991 to 1995 he was a consultant at McKinsey and Company, a management consultancy firm. Political career Elected to the Parliament of Victoria in 2006, he served as Parliamentary Secretary assisting the Premier on the National Reform Agenda and Innovation until his resignation on 31 December 2008. He is a noted donor to various progressive causes, including the Australian Labor Party. On 28 December 2008, Thornley announced that he would resign from the Victorian Parliament, despite speculation that he would be chosen to serve as a minister in John Brumby's government. His resignation was received angrily by some Labor colleagues who thought his decision "insulting" and a "disgrace." He had been appointed as the CEO of Australian operations for Better Place, a company promoting electric cars. A joint sitting of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council of the