From Crazy John’s to Canva, here’s to 21 years of the Young Rich List

Patricia Ilhan remembers the moment like it was yesterday. It was September 2003, and her husband, “Crazy” John Ilhan, had just been named as No. 1 on the inaugural BRW Young Rich List of self-made entrepreneurs aged 40 and under. His fortune was estimated at $200 million.

For the pair, it was more than a number. To appear at the top of the first Young Rich List felt like recognition that John’s audacious bet on the nascent mobile phone business – and himself – had paid off. Born in Turkey, he moved with his family to Australia when he was three years old and grew up in the working-class Melbourne suburb of Broadmeadows.