Released 10/05/2018
Respected business leaders Bernadette Brown and Karen Schilling will join the ACT Government’s Defence Industry Advisory Board, to support innovation and jobs growth in Canberra.
Defence industries create a significant number of jobs in the Canberra region, boosting employment across many sectors including transport, retail trade, construction and the professional and technical services sectors.
The Canberra region is home to 15,000 defence jobs and a third of the top 25 defence contractors to the Australian Government have their Australian corporate headquarters in the ACT.
The ACT Government is committed to supporting defence industries to prosper in the region. We anticipate these industries will be an area of future growth for our economy and we welcome the new appointments to the ACT Defence Industry Advisory Board, which will bring a wealth of business and defence experience.
The Defence Industry Advisory Board performs an important advisory role to help grow the defence, cyber security and space sectors in Canberra and these two new appointments will reinforce the Board’s experience and depth of knowledge in these fields.
Karen Schilling is currently the General Manager Corporate for defence contractor Sigma Bravo and has extensive business and military experience. Bernadette Brown is a Director for Canberra cyber security firm Cogito Group, which specialises in systems integration and identity management.
The Board vacancies were advertised around Australia and the quality of applications made this process particularly challenging to finalise. I thank everyone who expressed their desire to help the ACT thrive in these defence and tech sectors that are so important to Canberra’s current and future economic growth.
There are now nine members of the ACT Defence Industry Advisory Board, comprising:
- Air Marshal (Ret’d) Geoff Brown AO;
- Air Vice Marshal (Ret’d) Mark Skidmore AM;
- Brigadier (Ret’d) Alison Creagh CSC;
- Ms Bernadette Brown;
- Mr Robert Forbes;
- Mr Glenn Keys;
- Ms Karen Schilling;
- Mr Adam Smith; and
- Ms Kate Lundy, ACT Defence Industry Advocate.
To find out more, please read the ACT Defence Industry Strategy.
- Statement ends -
Andrew Barr, MLA | Media Releases