Hugh Jackman is getting a new day job… but it’s not in showbiz, and the pay is $0.
When high school pals and Humanitix founders Joshua Ross and Adam McCurdie needed a job filled at their Aussie start-up, they didn’t expect Wolverine himself to step into the role – but he has.
Today, it was announced the 57-year-old will start as Head of Impact for the ticketing platform that directs 100 per cent of its profits to charity.
Founded in 2016 in Australia, the platform provides a user-friendly interface for booking tickets to a variety of different events, ranging from workshops to large festivals, while enabling hosts to fund social projects rather than corporate profits
Speaking to nine.com.au, Ross and McCurdie revealed Jackman’s involvement all came about by accident.
“Another famous Australian, Peter Singer, is a massive author and philosopher. He introduced us to Hugh Jackman. Turns out Hugh’s read a bunch of Peter’s books, so have we, and so he thought we should have a conversation,” Ross explained.
What came next was a phone call meeting that Ross described only as “uncanny”.
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”I turns out we share a lot in common in terms of what we want to create and for the world … it was an uncanny call. We’d read all the same books about social enterprise and philanthropy,” he said.
“It then became a conversation that naturally evolved to ‘Well, how do I get involved? How can I help you guys? This is amazing’,” Ross continued.
With Jackman’s global stardom, McCurdie laughed that he was “under immense pressure” from his wife and mother-in-law to speak to the Aussie icon themselves.
“It was very testing. I was getting a lot of heat to find a way to have them on the call with [Jackman],” he said.
“When I started dating my wife over 10 years ago when this all began, she and my mother-in-law helped us out significantly with volunteer hours. They’ve seen this whole journey since the beginning and they really wanted to join the call with Hugh.”
McCurdie ended up deciding to keep things professional leaving his family off the call but they were still “incredibly excited” by the thought of having Jackman onboard.
Unlike most jobs, Jackman isn’t taking a pay cheque for this role.
“It’s not a typical celebrity endorsement. He’s not getting paid for this. He’s doing this because he’s genuinely passionate,” McCurdie said.
Humanitix have already celebrated more than $20 million in profits donated to high-impact charities and they hope to push that number to $100 million in five years time.
Jackman is all part of the plan to reach that goal and accelerate the social enterprises’ global expansion.
Jackman isn’t just a face for Humanitix; he’s an established philanthropist who is ready to get his hands dirty and directly help the founders on how the business scales globally.
“It’s unbelievable how well-read he is already on social enterprise and how much more engaged he wants to continue to be. When we showed him our numbers, when we talked through our model, he’s 100 steps ahead already,” McCurdie said.
In his own statement about Humanitix’s work, Jackman said in a statement: “Most of us don’t think twice about ticketing fees or where the profits go.
“Humanitix flips that on its head by turning those fees into real impact for real people. It’s such a simple shift, but it has already changed tens of thousands of lives and has the potential to change millions more.”
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