Bill Bowtell trained as a diplomat, with postings in Portugal, Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe before becoming an advisor to the New South Wales Attorney-General in 1981. As senior adviser to the Australian health minister Neal Blewett from 1983 to 1987, he played a significant role in the introduction of the Medicare health insurance system and was an architect of Australia's response to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS). He was president of the Australian Foundation of AIDS Organisations and a director of the AIDS Trust of Australia 1992-1993 and also involved in the National Advisory Committee on AIDS and its successor the Australian National Council on AIDS. He operated the consultancy firm Bill Bowtell Issues Management and worked for the Attorney-General's Department and the Office of the Minister for Justice in that capacity on AIDS-related legal issues 1993-1994. Between 1994 and 1996, he was senior political adviser to the Prime Minister Paul Keating. He became the executive director of the HIV/AIDS Project at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in 2005 and executive director of Pacific Friends of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in 2009. He was appointed an Officer on the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2012 for distinguished service to public health through the development and implementation of policy and programs supporting HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, and as a supporter of global debate on communicable diseases and their impact on human and economic development.