Simon Anderson is an Australian competitive surfer, surfboard shaper, and writer. A large, deceptively casual power surfer, Anderson achieved notoriety in both competition and sheer performance through the early days of pro surfing. Like many pros of the day, he also learnt how to shape surfboards thinking it might be useful as a career backup. He is credited with the 1980 invention of a three-fin surfboard design, called the Thruster.

Anderson grew up in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney. In 1977 he won the Bells Beach Classic competition and the Coke Surfabout in Sydney, and began shaping surfboards.

In October 1980, after seeing a twin fin surfboard with a "trigger point" fin, Anderson had the idea for a new version of the existing three fin. He then created a prototype for the Thruster design and took it on tour with him to Hawaii and California. When he returned to Sydney, he made two more surfboards with similar designs.

In 1981, using one of those surfboards, he won the competition at the Bells Beach Classic and the World Surf League Offshore Pipeline Masters. Surfing history took its biggest turn since polyurethane foam as the three-fin Thruster design became the most popular fin design for surfboards over the next 30 years. In fact, the Thruster made Anderson the one person who can truthfully be said to have affected every surfer on the planet.

Anderson retired from professional surfboarding in the mid-80's. In November 2000, he was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for services to surfboard design. Eleven years later, he published his autobiography (Thrust: The Simon Anderson Story) and was inducted into the Surfer's Hall of Fame.

Anderson has supported many team riders including Kerby Brown, Christo Hall and Cooper Chapman.