Last month DKA wel­comed our new Chair, Arrernte woman, Sera Bray. Sera takes over from the Inter­im Chair, Chris Fry. We are excit­ed about the appoint­ment of Sera who has held senior nation­al man­age­ment roles devel­op­ing strate­gies and imple­men­ta­tion plans to achieve social, eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al out­comes. Sera was par­tic­u­lar­ly proud to lead the Indige­nous par­tic­i­pa­tion on the multi­bil­lion-dol­lar INPEX project in Dar­win whilst work­ing for Leighton Con­trac­tors, where over forty mil­lion dol­lars of con­tracts award­ed to local Abo­rig­i­nal busi­ness­es gen­er­at­ed one of the most suc­cess­ful employ­ment and social out­comes for the North­ern Territory. 

Sera’s cur­rent role is with the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Government’s Depart­ment of Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning and Logis­tics as the Region­al Direc­tor for its crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture hous­ing program. 

Respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing strong links between indus­try, sec­tor and com­mu­ni­ty, she has ded­i­cat­ed her life and career to help­ing ensure the bet­ter­ment of Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple and thriv­ing sus­tain­able communities.

Along with the appoint­ment of Sera Bray, new Board mem­bers Mandy Tay­lor and Brad Bel­lette have joined return­ing Board mem­bers, Vanes­sa Elliott, Dawn Ross, Dr Pat Miller OA, Chris Cro­ker, Gary Pow­ell and Chris Fry.

Long-stand­ing Board mem­ber, Rede Ogden resigned at the Sep­tem­ber Board meet­ing. We thank Rede for his com­mit­ment and con­tri­bu­tions to the Board since 2015. We wish him all the best for his next chapter. 

The DKA Board meets quar­ter­ly as deter­mined in the Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia Act (2003) NT and has over­sight over the strate­gic direc­tion, bud­get and oper­a­tions of DKA.

The Board is over­see­ing the devel­op­ment of a new strate­gic plan and mas­ter­plan for the Precinct in com­ing months.