Petros Khalesirad

Born in Iran, 29 year old Petros Khalesirad and his family came to Australia in 1983. Because of religious persecution, which is the mistreatment of people due to f their religious beliefs, Petros and his family had to escape their country and arrived in Australia as refugees. Imagine waking up one morning with everything but no freedom to flipping it and having nothing but freedom. This is the story of the Khalesirad family whose surname has received heritage listing status.

At the age of 14, Petros started his IT business in Rockhampton. He was renowned at school for “the person most likely to take over Bill Gates empire”. Over the last decade, Ultimate IT has grown to one of the largest IT companies outside of Brisbane employing over 10 people, all of which are younger than him.

Outside of his IT empire, Petros also dedicates himself to sport, the community and most importantly his family. Currently a 4th Dan black belt in karate, Petros has been practising Shotokan Karate for over 17 years and has also represented Australia at a world level.

His most recent community project was the hosting of the Rockhampton 2020 Youth Summit where 210 youth attended that were invited from over 46 schools in the Rockhampton region. As “Mr 2020”, Petros believes “if you don’t have the will to change it then you don’t have the right to criticise it”. He has stepped up as an ordinary member of the community to prove that “one person can make a difference”. His goal for the Rockhampton region is to create a new region to be discovered and his vision for the year 2020 is for the Rockhampton region not to just be known as “the beef capital” but “the liveable capital of Australia”.

Petros doesn’t like it when people try to tell him what his future will be, so what better way to predict it than to create it yourself! His wife and him share the love of his 2 year old son Kairan and the recent addition of his second son Noah to add to the Khalesirad karate team.

Petros has many quotes he lives by but his most favourite is “without risk you cannot have success and the rules of success don’t work unless you do”.