Kerry’s career includes being Managing Director and CEO of The Northcott Society from 2008 to 2020, where she led the organisation through a period of enormous change and growth.
She is the Chair of Northcott Innovation, a Director of Healthy North Coast Ltd and a member of the Board of Trustees of Western Sydney University where she chairs the Finance and Investment Committee
Kerry has extensive human resources, research, and teaching expertise in the areas of anti-discrimination, equal employment opportunity and social justice.
Her working life has moved through a range of industries and roles, largely with organisations that are focused on service to the community. Early in her career, she worked as a junior lecturer at Sydney University, and then in the NSW Parliament as a researcher.
Kerry moved from there to take up roles in Equal Employment Opportunity and Human Resources for Sydney Water, and then into operational management in Sydney Water and Australian Water Technology P/L. Kerry then joined St Vincent’s and Mater Health Australia, first as Group Human Resources Manager, and then as Executive Director of St Vincent’s Hospital and Sacred Heart.
In academia, Kerry was appointed to the College of Adjuncts at Western Sydney University. And she has worked as an academic at both Sydney University and the University of Technology. Kerry has undergraduate and postgraduate honours degrees in Government and Public Administration.
Kerry is deeply interested in using design thinking to foster innovation and better co-design of services and systems for the people who use them, particularly disadvantaged and minority communities. In 2015 Kerry was voted among the top 25 Australians in Pro Bono Australia’s Impact List and in 2007 she was chosen as the NSW Telstra Businesswoman of the year in the Community and Government sector.
She is also a member of the Advisory Council to the AHPPC on disability pandemic planning, after first being appointed during the height of COVID-19 in Australia. Kerry was also appointed to the NSW Domestic and Family Violence and Sexual Assault Council. And Kerry is a general member of the NSW Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal after first being appointed in 2021.