Our Team

Meet The GenerationOne Team

The GenerationOne team is made up of a group of people with a diversity of skills in government, policy, marketing, advertising, media, health, university background, arts and culture, community engagement, youth work and research.

Click the links below to find out more about the team:

• Warren Mundine, GenerationOne Chairman
• Matt O'Sullivan, Manager - Vocational Training and Employment
• Vanessa Peters, Manager – School Education and Career Pathways
• Kerry Pinkstone, Manager - Strategic Engagement
• Johanna Kerin , Communications Manager
• John McNamara, Employer Account Manager
• Michael Starr, Employer Account Manager
• Philip Jerrard, Administration Assistant
• Belinda Murdoch, Pathway Program Regional Coordinator NSW
• Christine Fry, Pathway Program Regional Coordinator Northern QLD

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Warren Mundine is from Bundjalung country and the Gumbaynggirr people on the North Coast of New South Wales (NSW).

Warren is a highly respected and influential businessman, political strategist and Indigenous advocate for empowering Indigenous Australia to build a sustained Indigenous economy.

His life and career have been shaped by a personal commitment to community, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and he has more than 26 years’ experience working in the public, private and community sectors.

Before taking on the role of CEO for GenerationOne, Warren was the CEO of NTSCORP Ltd. Other roles include Chairman of the Australian Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, National President of the Australian Labor Party, National Convenor of the ALP National Indigenous Labor Network and as Chair of the ALP (NSW) Indigenous People & Reconciliation Policy Committee.  He also has Honorary Life Membership of the NSW Local Government Aboriginal Network and has been awarded the Centenary Medal for services to the community and local government and the Bennelong Medal for Leadership in Indigenous Affairs.

"There is only one way to tackle welfare dependency in Indigenous communities and that's to give people the best alternative - a career” said Mr Mundine. “I am looking forward to the challenge of working with business, Government and Indigenous communities across Australia to deliver real jobs.”

Equal to his community spirit is Mr. Mundine’s passion and love of football, both the ‘world game’ and rugby league. He is one of Football Federation Australia’s Indigenous Football Ambassadors can often be seen attending matches of the Western Sydney Wanderers.

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Matthew started his career as a youth worker, seeing first hand the barriers that can obstruct success and the power of employment to change lives, and generations, forever.

Since then Matthew has continued to work in the non-profit sector, as Manager of Reality Youth and Community Services, then Program Manager for The Australian’s Children Trust,  then General Manager for The Australian Employment Covenant(AEC) and now with the merging of AEC and GenerationOne, Matthew has taken on the role as National Manager of Vocational Training and Employment.

Matthew’s mixture of management and grass-roots experience means he understands what it means to employ someone who has barriers to employment, and what a successful pre employment program looks like.

He has seen some employers join the AEC with trepidation, but end up overwhelmed with the positive outcome.

"Many AEC employers say this is one of the most rewarding aspects of their work," said Matthew.

Over the years Matthew said he has seen many Indigenous Australians, particularly the young, look at their prospects and see despair, yet through a guaranteed job and a floodlit pathway to a career, hope is returned.

Matthew hopes to see the 60000 plus jobs committed by AEC employers filled with Indigenous Australians going on to develop great careers and ending Indigenous disparity for themselves and future generations.

"Employment is the catalyst for great things in a community, it breaks the cycle of poverty and changes everything, for good."

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Most recently, Vanessa worked as Principal Policy Adviser to the Minister for Education in Western Australia.  She considers herself very fortunate to have been in a position to develop and negotiate policy direction in the education portfolio, particularly in the field of Aboriginal education; and to contribute to the development and advancement of Aboriginal education and post schooling pathways in Western Australia. 

In addition to her parliamentary and policy responsibilities, she has been involved in the development of partnerships and relationships across governments, the private sector and community stakeholders.  This included the development of significant strategic partnership and sponsorship agreements which aim to improve the educational outcomes for students in regional and remote Western Australia, especially focussing on improving outcomes for Aboriginal students.

Previous to this role Vanessa worked in the central office of the WA Department of Education in various roles, including Regional and Remote Education; managing the Arts portfolio and in secondary school support.  She was a secondary school teacher.  Prior to entering the teaching profession Vanessa spent many years in the private sector in a range of roles and organisations including training and recruitment.

Vanessa is a passionate educator particularly in relation to reducing educational disadvantage, particularly for Indigenous students.   She is very excited to join the GenerationOne team and to work towards our goal of ending the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

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Kerry has extensive experience in the area of social policy, having been an Adviser to Ministers, Shadow Ministers and the Leader of the Opposition in the areas of families, community services, Indigenous Affairs, disability and carers, sport, women, youth, philanthropy and corporate social responsibility.

Commencing in 2010 as part of the start-up team, Kerry's role has been to manage campaign strategy and implementation, policy research and development, commissioning and managing market research projects, developing key campaigns, media messaging and communication, community and stakeholder engagement, and coordinating major events including policy forums and employer roundtables. 

Kerry was a participant of the 2012 Sydney Leaderhip Program, and in 2011 completed the Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA) Copland Program. 

Kerry is currently working towards completing her Masters in Public Policy.

Kerry was born in Blacktown, NSW and grew up in Western Sydney before moving with her family to Tweed Heads to attend High School. Kerry attended Griffith University (Gold Coast) where she completed a Bachelor of Business and a Bachelor of Exercise Science. Kerry has also worked with several leading event management companies on events including the Noosa and Mooloolabah Triathlons, the Mother's Day Classic Fun Run, motor sports races, and Weetbix Kids Try-athlon series.

Kerry's passion for ending the disparity:

"Education was the set of keys that I had to work hard for. I never questioned the reward - I knew that those keys were the future to unlocking the doors of opportunity. Every year of study and experience was another set of keys that would allow me to continue to unlock doors for the rest of my adult life.

The reason I joined GenerationOne was to make sure others had the opportunity to gain their own set of keys - to open their own doors of opportunity, and walk through them confidently into a better life. One of their choosing."

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“All Australians should have the opportunity to be the best they can be” is the mantra that Johanna lives by.  After completing B Arts and B Teaching degrees, she starting working in Western Sydney as a secondary school teacher.  Using the classroom as a platform to promote equality and understanding she was continually inspired by the young adults in her classes. 

Johanna’s postgraduate studies include a Masters in Indigenous Education, a Graduate Certificate in Journalism and in 2012 she completed the Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA) Copland Program.

In 2010 after reading an interesting article in the paper coupled with an amazing picture of the Opera House covered in the hand-prints of hundreds of Australians signing up to GenerationOne.  She soon realised that GenerationOne was exactly the initiative that she wanted to be part of; employers, school kids, teachers, journalists and politicians all putting their hand up to end the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. 

In 2011 Johanna started as a volunteer with the organisation and by the end of the year she had taken up the role of media officer. 

“This job gives me a chance to share the good news stories from Indigenous Australia.  Our leaders, our youth and our families have fought for so much change and its time the rest of Australia started hearing about it, she your story and be part of the generation for change,” Johanna said.

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John is a Wiradjuri man from Western NSW with over 25 years experience in Indigenous employment and economic development, overseeing Indigenous employment initiatives in both the private and public sector.

The frameworks John developed to recruit and train Indigenous employees are still the gold standard used today.

John has developed and implemented employment strategies with many of Australia’s top corporate organizations. Over the years he has been pleased to watch them grow into some of the nation’s leading Indigenous employee advocates.

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Over the past 15 years Michael has performed in senior management and leadership roles, with special expertise in business development and building high performance teams.

Michael's career background is in business services, executive recruitment and staffing. More recently he led a team of 40 staff in the non-profit sector to deliver employment and training to disadvantaged youth.

His extensive experience has included roles as managing director, general manager and regional manager.

Michael places a high priority on building excellent, long standing business relationships built on trust.

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From the Gomilaroi nation located in the Northern NSW, Philip moved to Sydney in 2005 to work at Macquarie University as an Administration Assistant.

Since that time Philip has worked in various roles within the Tertiary Education and Public Sectors including; administration assistant and acting student support officer at the University in Western Sydney, trainee client service officer co-managing a portfolio of housing in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney within the department of Housing and customer services officer at Centrelink. 

Most recently Philip has worked at Department Of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) as a contract officer.  In this role he managed employment, education and economic development contracts.

“I am a proud Aboriginal man, and am passionate about the improvement of the quality of life for Indigenous Australians. I am glad to be a part of the GenerationOne team in working towards ending the disparity between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians,” said Philip.

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Belinda Murdoch has worked in the education field for the past 13 years and has always had a passion for working with Aboriginal students. She started her career in Early Childhood Education where she worked for 7 years.  During this time she worked in 2 early childhood centres as an early childhood teacher. Belinda implemented and ran the Save the Children Mobile Playbus for five years.  The Playbus is a mobile playgroup that is facilitated in parks in low socioeconomic areas where many socially and economically disadvantaged families have poor access early educational services. Following on from her work on the Playbus Belinda was the Director at Gujaga Aboriginal Child Care Centre La Perouse.

Whilst working on the Mobile Playbus and at Gujaga Belinda’s passion for Indigenous education grew and she decided to focus her attention on school based education.  In 2005 she enrolled at Sydney University where she completed a Bachelor of Education (Secondary) majoring in Aboriginal Studies and History.

Belinda completed her Education Degree in 2008 and has been teaching in a Department of Education School with high Indigenous enrolments. From 2008 to 2010 Belinda taught Aboriginal Studies, History, Geography, Commerce, Business Studies and PDHPE. During this time her desire to make education more meaningful and relevant to life after school led her to the role with Generation One.

In her role as NSW P-Plate Coordinator, Belinda is responsible for working with schools participating in the program and developing their Indigenous student’s career and aspirations, whilst linking them to real job or further training or education opportunities.

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Born in Bundaberg Queensland, Christine has worked in the education sector for years.  After studying at the University of Queensland she completed a Graduate Diploma in Aboriginal Education at James Cook University in Townsville.

After working in the classroom with Indigenous students for a short time, she found her forte.  It did not take her long to become advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education.

In she began to specialise in literacy and numeracy education for Indigenous students at Tropical North Queensland TAFE in Cairns.

Christine joined the P Plate Program in 2010, excited at the prospect of making a difference for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school students across North Queensland.

Through the development of practical resources such as personalised learning plans for teachers, she firmly believes that linking the young people with committed employers is the best way to end the disparity between Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians.

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