Throughout his Churchie days and six years at university, Old Boy Chris Heydon (2004) had struggled with the concept of having to make life choices about study, preferred industries and professions, without ever being fully exposed to what was actually out there. Even though he battled his way through university, still not knowing what he wanted to do, he suddenly found himself in a dream job travelling the world and was so glad that he had completed his studies. Chris has helped to launch real estate media businesses (with a focus throughout the Asia Pacific region), coordinated sales events for luxury properties across the world (including New York, Beijing, Tokyo, Phuket and Kuala Lumpur) and been part of a very small team to launch over 20 digital media platforms across 28 countries.

Chris now finds himself back in Queensland, working on a project that benefits communities close to him and enables him to leverage his home network rather than forging new frontiers.  He is excited to have recently helped launch InQueensland, a new independent digital news service with a focus on Queensland business, politics, arts and culture, created by some of the state’s most respected writers. After all this time, with the ability to bring a world of experience to something so focussed and meaningful to him personally, he feels that he has finally decided what he wants to do for a living. 

Chris says: “Well before the COVID-19 crisis, many in the community were disenfranchised by mainstream media and hungry for high-quality unbiased journalism. Now more than ever Queenslanders are seeking free, up to date and reliable analysis and news. We started publishing on 10 February this year and in our second month, we saw about 250,000 unique visitors to our website. It’s been quite rewarding to see such strong organic growth and engagement from across our state in support of genuine news coverage. We plan to offer a majority equity share in this Queensland project, soon, to local investors to ensure the enterprise is Queensland owned and operated.”

With his real estate background and focus on marketing and international digital media, Chris was appointed to help launch the publication, engage commercial partners and sponsors, while also setting their launch audience and establishing plans for revenue and audience growth. “InQueensland provides our state’s only truly independent, high-quality news service – freely available to all Queenslanders.” Chris invites everyone to take a look and subscribe to their free daily newsletter at www.InQLD.com.au