Douglas Gautier

Douglas Alexander Gautier is an Australian arts administrator. He lived in Hong Kong for around 25 years, where he worked in various roles in the arts and entertainment world, before being appointed CEO and artistic director of the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust in 2006. He retired from this position in mid-2025. He also served on the Flinders University Council, and was deputy chancellor of the university from 2012 until 2025 (with his final term extension being from 2023–2025).

Early life and education Douglas Alexander Gautier

He studied drama at Flinders University, graduating in 1975 with a BA (Hons). At that time Wal Cherry was the founding professor of the drama department at that time. Gautier's favourite teacher was history lecturer James Main,

In 1977 Gautier worked at the BBC as a music and arts producer, before becoming head of Radio Television Hong Kong's music and arts channel in 1979, in April 2019. This was the first time a main stage Disney theatrical production had ever been presented in South Australia, and required direct representations to senior staff at Disney Theatrical in New York. During his time there, a major redevelopment of Her Majesty's Theatre, an Edwardian theatre built in 1913, was undertaken to make it into a comfortable and commercially viable venue, which now seats 1500. The Adelaide Festival Centre has also undergone significant renovations and redesign of the exterior areas, starting with visual arts around 2008, and expanding into OUR WORDS and OUR STORIES. He aimed to make make Adelaide into an "all year round" festival city, and has also been conscious of the need to have a balance of types and scale of works, including large commercial work and musicals as well as community work, free work, exhibitions, and work with Adelaide theatre companies.

Gautier was founding vice chair of the Asian Arts Festival Association, and a board member of the Asian Cultural Council. He has also been an executive councillor of Live Performance Australia, and on the advisory board of the Global Cultural Districts Network.

Gautier was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2016 Australia Day Honours List, "For significant service to arts administration through leadership roles with a range of institutions, to tertiary education, and to the community".

Also in 2016, Gautier featured in a photographic exhibition at Flinders University entitled Flinders Fifty Creatives, featuring "graduates have made their mark in theatre, film, television, communication, publishing, digital media and other creative industries".

Personal life Gautier's wife is Chinese, and they have two daughters. In a 2013 interview Gautier said that they travelled to Hong Kong frequently to visit family and friends.

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