The Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) is saddened to learn of the death of Clive Hildebrand AM FAIIA. Hildebrand was the national president of the AIIA between 2005 and 2010. He was also President of the Queensland branch of the AIIA. Hildebrand was made a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2016.

AIIA National Vice President Zara Kimpton OAM, who worked closely with Hildebrand when he served as president of AIIA Queensland, will pay tribute to him in an obituary for Australian Outlook. Kimpton remembers Hildebrand as an innovator who improved the governance and practices of the institute. She notes that Hildebrand led the institute to conduct a major review of its business, and that Hildebrand was influential in the decision by the AIIA National Executive in appointing Melissa Conley Tyler, then the youngest and to date the longest-serving national executive director of the institute.

Hildebrand was an industry executive, active in mining. Born in Gladstone Queensland in 1937, then educated at Yeronga State and Brisbane Grammar Schools, University of Queensland (BE (Mining)) and as Queensland 1960 Rhodes Scholar at Oxford (MA (PPE)), he started his mineral industry career as a miner at Mount Isa. He later lived in Melbourne (twice), Sydney, Johannesburg and Brisbane.

He was the managing director of coal company QCT resources. After retiring from QCT in 1994, he took up the directorship or chair of a number of public companies and other organisations and, as Chair of the Sugar R&D Corporation from 1995 to 2002, he published his independent assessment of the sugar industry, commissioned by then Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Warren Truss MP.

He had an ongoing involvement in higher education, latterly with Griffith University as council member for eight years from 1989, honorary professor in business-related schools since 1995, member of the Griffith University Quality Committee during quality audits of Australian universities in the early 1990s and a member of the advisory board of the Key Centre of Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance. In 1999 he was awarded DUniv (Doctor of the University) by Griffith. He was a member of the State Ministerial advisory body on public health, Health Promotion Queensland.