Martin Hosking was born in 1960 and lives in the Dandenongs, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. He is a co-founder of RedBubble and former chairman of Aconex

Aconex

Aconex is a privately held Australian company providing web-based electronic construction collaboration technologies , on a Software as a service basis, to customers in the engineering, natural resources, construction and property sectors...

. He has lectured at the Melbourne Business School

Melbourne Business School

Melbourne Business School is a business school located in Melbourne, Australia that has been ranked in the Financial Times since 2005 and The Economist Top 20 in the World. MBS was placed as the second best business school in the Asia-Pacific in the 2010 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report....

 and been recognized as one of Australia's leading Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs.

Early life and education

Hosking grew up in Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

 and completed his higher education at the University of Melbourne

University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...

 in history.

Early career

Hosking joined the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia)

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is a department of the government of Australia charged with advancing the interests of Australia and its citizens internationally...

 where he served in Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

 and Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 and learned to speak Arabic.

Hosking started his business career with consultants McKinsey & Company

McKinsey & Company

McKinsey & Company, Inc. is a global management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern to senior management. McKinsey serves as an adviser to many businesses, governments, and institutions...

 and was later employed by Looksmart

LookSmart

LookSmart is an online advertising company based in San Francisco. LookSmart provides search advertising products and services to text advertisers, as well as targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its Search Advertising Network...

 as a senior executive.

RedBubble

Hosking is a co-founder of RedBubble, along with Paul Vanzella and Peter Styles. RedBubble is "an online marketplace for artists and art lovers. Membership of the site is free, artists retain their copyright, set their own prices and choose which products they want to sell (prints, T-shirts and gift cards). In keeping with the evolution of the web, RedBubble is fostering community above and beyond transactional interaction."

In May and June 2011, RedBubble was criticized for selling T-shirts based on the comic strip Hipster Hitler. Though the creators said the images and slogans were parodies of Hitler, the products were removed in June 2011, and Hosking said that RedBubble's "play nice" guidelines would be changed to prohibit such parodies and any other material that would likely cause "deep offence". A week after the removal of the T-shirts, RedBubble was again criticized for selling baby clothing with serial killer and Nazi motifs. Most of the offending products were removed, although the media reported that some still remained on the website. Hosking resigned as chairman of Aconex, an online project management company, on 15 June 2011 to focus on his CEO role at RedBubble.

Australian Arabic Council

Hosking was a member of the Australian Arabic Council and was its Secretary in 2005, in which capacity he emphasized support for Palestinian human rights and moderation on several issues, including arrests of terror suspects, racial profiling, and ASIO

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is Australia's national security service, which is responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically-motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and...

searches.