It was late on Saturday afternoon in April last year, when billionaire philanthropist Judith Neilson raised her glass to celebrate her private secretary’s 50th birthday at a lavish party in the McRae Bar at the five-star Capella hotel in Sydney’s CBD.
Birthday girl Annalouise “Lou” Spence was resplendent in a shimmering sequined polyester gown on which she’d splurged $1200. She’d also spent $10,000 on Jimmy Choo stilettos and a matching gold evening bag. And that was just for her first outfit for the night.
As Neilson rested her cocktail glass on a linen napkin embroidered with her secretary’s name and initials, she had no idea that she was footing the $40,000 party costs, which included $1000 for the monogrammed napkins, the luxury outfits and accessories, as well as $6000 for her secretary’s two-night stay at the Capella with her husband, Adam Spence.
But the party was just the tip of the industrial-scale fraud that her secretary had been allegedly perpetrating for years.
For eight years, the 79-year-old Neilson, who does not use email or indeed a computer, had entrusted Spence with access to her intimate personal and financial details.
By impersonating Neilson and forging authorisations, Spence is alleged to have spent an estimated $1.5 million on first-class travel, extravagant hotel stays, designer clothes, accessories, jewellery and artwork.
Apart from booking first-class air travel, Spence is also alleged to have transferred almost 1 million of Neilson’s Qantas frequent flyer points for her personal use. Spence would also book flights for Neilson and then cancel them, allegedly using the credits herself.
She is also alleged to have redeemed 7.2 million American Express Membership Rewards points, which belonged to Neilson.
Having organised extravagant meals, accommodation and tickets to rock concerts for her friends, allegedly using her employer’s funds, Spence would then get her friends to reimburse her, effectively perpetrating two frauds.
Pretending to be her boss, Spence is also alleged to have obtained thousands of dollars in cash and foreign currency, which she claimed was for Neilson’s overseas travel.
For example, in April 2024, the finance team received an email purportedly from Neilson asking for $10,000 to be put onto Spence’s credit card. “Lou will then withdraw that money for me over the next five days in $2000 increments so that I have cash on hand.”
The email went on to say that since Neilson’s local bank branch had closed, “Lou will take care of this for me in the future so that I do not need to go all the way into the city in order to get money. Thank you, Judith.”
“I was sickened and so damned hurt,” said Neilson on discovering Spence’s alleged frauds.
Neilson described feeling a “profound sense of betrayal” because for years she had entrusted Spence to organise travel logistics, oversee household operations and philanthropic activities.
Spence and her husband had also lived rent-free in premises owned by Neilson, next door to Neilson’s own Chippendale home, which has won numerous architectural awards.
But what angers the philanthropist most is that Spence was stealing money that may otherwise have gone to disadvantaged people in Africa and Australia, via the charities Neilson funds.
“Every cent goes to people in need, and she is stealing from these people,” Neilson told this masthead.
As a child, Annalouise Brown immigrated from Ireland with her parents and two sisters. After leaving Jamison High School in Penrith in 1992, Spence’s CV indicates she later worked as an executive assistant and then business analyst at the Starlight Foundation.
In 2014, she married rally car driver Adam Spence.
Before joining the Judith Neilson Family Office in 2017, Spence’s LinkedIn profile said she spent two years as “Executive Assistant to Her Majesty’s Ambassador at British Embassy, Qatar”.
Neilson now questions the veracity of Spence’s claims about her troubled childhood, including that her mother’s neglect had caused a facial scar “which dragged down the corner of her mouth.”
Spence also confided to Neilson that her mother treated her children like slaves. “Lou was having to do this washing and ironing from the age of five while her mother lay in the pool and drank box wine and smoked,” Neilson recalled being told.
But it was actually Neilson who had the “barefoot childhood”.
Born in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Neilson is one of the most influential figures in the Australian arts and philanthropic worlds.
She was one of four sisters. Her mother was a teacher and her father a mechanic who later specialised in car radiators.
“Everything was humble and wonderful,” she recently told this masthead. “It was family. You enjoyed what you had.”
At 17, she moved to South Africa to study graphic art and textile design. In 1983, she and her husband, Kerr Neilson, who would become one of the giants of Australia’s funds management industry, moved to Sydney.
Following the successful 2007 float of Platinum Asset Management, the company co-founded by her husband, the couple’s combined fortune catapulted them into the top 10 wealthiest Australians.
Even after their 2015 divorce, each still features in the annual rich list, with separate fortunes exceeding $1 billion.
Neilson has used her fortune to fund philanthropic endeavours, including the White Rabbit Gallery, which houses one of the most significant collections of Chinese contemporary art. Admission is free. Neilson also built and continues to fund Phoenix Central Park, a stunning performing arts venue.
While her buildings have won multiple architectural awards and her private art collection is astonishing, Neilson herself is not showy. She eschews the glitzy social world to which her wealth would automatically guarantee an entry. She famously does not wear jewellery. On her wrist is an ivory coloured Swatch watch.
The Black Amex card
The American Express Centurion card, unofficially known as the Black Amex, is so exclusive that you have to be invited to apply. With its $5000 joining fee and $6500 annual fee, it’s rumoured that only 6000 people in Australia have one.
Neilson received her Black Amex in February 2023. A fortnight later, her secretary called American Express to request a supplementary credit card in her own name.
Amex indicated via email that Neilson had only applied for two cards in her name and that Neilson would have to authorise any further cards.
An email seeking confirmation was sent to Neilson. On March 7, Spence is alleged to have emailed Amex pretending to be her boss. “I understand the terms and agree to have Annalouise as a supplementary cardholder and as the account manager for my account.
Kind regards, Judith.”
Having obtained her own supplementary card, Spence lied to other staff, claiming that Neilson was insisting on maintaining her privacy about her personal expenditure and had delegated Spence to deal with the Amex. At the end of the month, Spence would advise the finance team of the amount needed to pay the Amex account.
Neilson told this masthead she did not authorise Spence’s supplementary card, and she had no idea that Spence had removed the finance team’s oversight of the Amex account.
Without scrutiny, over the next two years, Spence clocked up just under $400,000 on domestic and international travel, often in first class. A further $335,000 was spent on fashion items and $184,000 on jewellery.
One of the privileges of the Centurion card is its concierge service. Before her card had even arrived, Spence was asking for two concert tickets to see The Cure in Seattle, USA, in June 2023. “The very best you can get – there is no budget,” she said in an email to the company’s “Centurion Lifestyle Team”.
She then used the card to buy a Qantas first-class return ticket to Seattle, via Los Angeles. The Seattle trip cost $45,000.
While in the US, she used Neilson’s money to buy a $16,000 piece of art for a male friend she had met through Neilson.
During her Seattle visit, the friend refused to accept her gift of the artwork and insisted on paying its cost. The money went into Spence’s own account.
She later treated her and her male friend to a five-night stay in the Rosewood suite at The Carlyle in New York, which cost more than $6500 per night. Neilson’s Centurion card was billed $38,757.85 for her secretary’s October 2023 sojourn.
“I was paying for Bennett to get his hair done weekly,” complained Neilson of Spence’s dog’s weekly visit to the pet parlour for grooming. When Spence went away, her dog was chauffeured to a pet resort in Terrigal.
There was also the $40,000 Spence allegedly spent on beauty products for herself.
On top of that was the $4500 she spent on subscriptions to media, lifestyle and fashion magazines, a $12,000 racing bike for her husband, and more than $100,000 on artwork.
In September 2024, Spence treated herself to $23,000 worth of shoes and clothes from the ultra-luxury designer brand Loro Piana. A week later, she’d spent another $30,000 at online store My Theresa.
Spence, who was about to accompany Neilson on an ocean voyage on The World, organised for her new purchases to be delivered to Neilson’s apartment on the ultra-luxurious private yacht on which the who’s who of the rich and famous sail around the globe for several months each year in their own private residences. The most expensive sale to date on The World was $21 million.
Earlier that year, while her employer was on The World, Spence indulged herself and her husband with a $23,000 VIP hospitality package for the 2024 Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix using Neilson’s Centurion account. This package provided luxury trackside access, culinary experiences, helicopter flights and five-star accommodation. She repeated the outing the following year.
Caught out
Due to a restructuring of Neilson’s office, Spence’s eight-year stint with the philanthropist came to an end on September 12 last year.
Only four days into her new role as Neilson’s executive assistant, Katy Lloyd Jones was reconciling Neilson’s accounts when she noticed a most unusual charge on Neilson’s AmEx bill.
The itemised Amex bill showed that on July 19, 2025, $58,593 had been spent on a rare pink-gold Rolex wristwatch from the Vintage Watch Company in London.
Alarm bells were ringing because in the brief time she’d spent with her new boss, she knew Neilson “doesn’t wear any jewellery and she definitely doesn’t wear expensive watches,” Lloyd Jones told this masthead.
As she scanned the Amex account, Lloyd Jones saw that two days after the antique watch purchase, $21,000 had been spent at the luxury Knightsbridge department store, Harrods.
Neilson was not in London at the time.
After passing on her concerns to the accounts department, it didn’t take long to identify the recently departed Spence.
On September 17, Ben Walker from Neilson’s finance team contacted Spence about the London transactions that had been flagged.
Spence apologised, claiming it had been a mix-up. She repaid the money.
But by now, the finance department was involved in a detailed audit of Neilson’s personal finances. As more discrepancies came to light, in November last year, Neilson’s team hired risk and crisis manager Marnie Edwards, who also happens to be a former detective inspector with the NSW Police.
For the past six months, Edwards and Simon Freeman, the chief executive of the Judith Neilson Foundation, have been working closely with investigators from the NSW police.
“The investigation into the conduct of Annalouise Spence has revealed a sustained, sophisticated and deliberately concealed pattern of financial fraud against Judith Neilson,” said Edwards.
“This was not a single episode of misconduct but a prolonged, escalating and calculated scheme involving over 350 purchases using multiple credit instruments, reward programs, travel credits, forged authorisations, impersonation, personal reimbursements, luxury purchases and international travel,” the former detective said.
Comment has been sought from Spence.
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