Clinton Dines

Clinton Dines was born and raised in regional Queensland and went to Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, graduating in 1978 with a Degree from the School of Modern Asian Studies. He is also a graduate of the Course in International Management at INSEAD in France.

Clinton arrived in China in early 1979 on a post-graduate program arranged by Griffith University and has lived and worked continuously in the Greater China Region for almost 36 years, mostly in mainland China.

Early in his business career, Clinton occupied frontline operational and commercial management positions in China with the Jardine Matheson Group, the Santa Fe Transport Group and Asia Securities Venture Capital. In 1988, he was recruited by BHP to be the company’s senior country executive for China and stayed with the group for more than 21 years, retiring as President of BHP Billiton China in July 2009.

Clinton is a fluent Mandarin speaker and after 14 years in Beijing relocated to Shanghai in late 2002 to run the merged and restructured BHP Billiton China operations from there. He was a prime mover in the establishment of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in China in 1993 and chaired that organisation again from 1998 to 2000. He is a Founding Governor of the Capital Club in Beijing, served as President of the Board of the Shanghai Community Sports Club for nearly a decade, was a founding Member of the Oriental Mining Club Board and has been involved in various charitable and not-for-profit organisations. In 2006, he was the only non-Chinese person invited by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games to sit on the judging panel to select the design for the Beijing Olympic Medals and he was also named by the Australian Olympic Committee to be the Attaché to the Australian Olympic Team for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.