Neil William Davey AO (2 February 1921 – 5 July 2019) was an Australian public servant who oversaw Australia's transition from pounds, shillings and pence to decimal currency.

[5] He enrolled in night school at the University of Melbourne, from which he graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor of Commerce (equal 1st class Honours).

[5][6] His field of study was the history of monetary thought and his PhD dissertation was titled The Decimal Coinage Controversy in England.

[7] In an Australian Financial Review article dated 12 February 2016, "How a New Currency Reflected the Confidence of a Nation", Selwyn Cornish, official historian of the Reserve Bank of Australia and honorary associate professor in the Research School of Economics at the Australian National University, stated "Davey was responsible for two critical decisions.

[5] On 2 May 1969, Sir Walter D. Scott wrote to Treasurer William McMahon: Of the Board staff, every Member of both the Decimal Currency Committee and the Decimal Currency Board would undoubtedly confirm that as Secretary of both, Dr. Neil Davey made an outstanding contribution.

At the Board, from 1963 to 1966, Dr. Davey carried a major part of the intensive planning, organisation and administration that characterised the Changeover, especially in the key years 1965–66.

[9]In October 2015, Terry Larkin (Principal Private Secretary to the Treasurer Harold Holt 1960 and 1962) stated: "Neil’s superior intellectual and managerial gifts applied to public service at the highest level of government give Neil a lasting place in the economic history of Australia – most notably in the 'nation building' event of Australia’s change to its own, unique decimal currency in February 1966 – and before and afterwards in the direction and expansion of Australia’s overseas economic and financial relations, especially in Asia."

Davey retired in February 1984, and was appointed chairman of the Asian Development Fund Committee, a post he held for four years.