Gift of insight is in his blood

ACCORDING to radio personality Steve Price, you have to be in Townsville 26 mango seasons before you’re a local, and Angelo Coco is proud to say he has made the milestone.

“I’m representative of a large number of people whose families come from regions to the north, south and east of Townsville who sent their children to higher education in Townsville and I come from the international municipality of Mourilyan,” Angelo said.

Angelo ( pictured) went to university in Townsville then moved to Brisbane to work with a major accounting firm to gain his qualifications as a chartered accountant.

He went to London for two years in the 1980s, then came back to Townsville where he worked in a local office and was mentored by one of the city’s founding fathers – Philip Leong.

“He was responsible for a lot of economic activity in Townsville because he ran two supermarkets and seven corner stores,” Angelo said.

“At the height of his business career he hired s o m e t h i n g like 700 people in Townsville.”

Angelo, who now runs his own family business advisory company, was his accountant for 20 years and is still on the boards of some of Mr Leong’s companies.

Not only was the building at Aitkenvale Library named after Mr Leong, an awards scheme called the Philip Leong Youth Program was founded to recognise young people who had a business idea.

“Since 2006, we’ve had 27 bursary winners and given out more than $ 200,000 in cash,” Angelo said. Angelo is passionate about fostering economic growth in Townsville. “The best example I can give was in 2016 our bursary winner was a 12- year- old with autism who developed four apps and two dotcoms and was invited to Silicon Valley for a global economic summit,” he said. With Innovation North Queensland, Angelo said a New Australia’s Got Talentstyle competition called Local Heroes was launching this weekend with people from from Mackay, Mount Isa, Cairns and Townsville will compete to be one of 30 local heroes invited to Townsville in May. Out of that 30, six winners will be picked to go to Myriad Techno Festival in Brisbane. “So often up here, someone comes up with a good idea and they get attracted down south because they have opportunities and funding and then that’s the end of it,” Angelo said. “That’s why we are trying to do something to keep people here.” > Editor Jenna Cairney is on a quest to meet Bulletin readers and hear their stories and learn what they love about living in North Queensland. To take part in the 100 readers in 100 days series email jenna. cairney@ news. com. au