GREAT Staff & Contractors
Brian Arnold, GREAT General Manager
Brian has 25 years’ experience in economic development with a very strong focus in Indigenous enterprise development.
Brian hopes to establish GREAT as a world class economic development organisation by creating unique and leading-edge projects.
His ultimate goal is to make sure GREAT is financially sustainable and will be providing its services for decades to come.
Prior to his appointment with GREAT Brian was the CEO of the Australian Industry Engineering & Manufacturing Network (AIEMnet).
Previously to that Brian was the CEO of the North Queensland Small Business Development Centre and was in the role for 4 years.
Tatiana Eddy, Chief Financial Officer
Tatiana is a finance professional with over 22 years of experience in strategic financial management and development in the private and non-profit sectors.
A dynamic manager with broad knowledge in compliance, payroll, forecasting, audits and budgeting.
Tatiana is a Certified Practising Accountant (CPA) with a Masters of Professional Accounting and a Bachelor in Economics. She is also a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Tatiana brings to GREAT a deep understanding of financial management in regional areas.
Gene Geedrick, Business Advisor
I was born and raised in Central Queensland and have spent most of my working life in Townsville North Queensland. I am Aboriginal on my father side with my Aboriginal ancestry from the Darumbal people of Central Queensland mainly around the coastal town of Yeppoon. My late father was one of the few Aboriginal soldiers who served in World War 2, Korea, Vietnam and the Malaysian Conflict. My late Mother was Japanese who came from the village of Ondo near Hiroshima.
I have extensive experience in assisting Indigenous people into business as well as supporting Indigenous organisations to grow and expand. My previous work history is also extensive and includes Business, Finance, Training, Industry and Community Development.
Julia Collings, Managing Bookkeeper
Julia transferred over to GREAT after working officially for ADBT since 1 December 2021. Prior to 1 December 2021, Julia attended to the book keeping duties for ADBT through MCB Financial Management Services for over 10 years. Current client work with GREAT includes Doomadgee Roadhouse, Normanton Traders, Gulf Labour Hire & Bidunggu Enterprises. In the past, Julia has attended to the bookkeeping services for other ADBT loan recipients.
Along with years of experience as a Bookkeeper, Julia has achieved her Advancing Diploma of Accounting and Diploma of Accounting through Open Colleges.
Prior to working for MCB Financial Management Services, Julia worked for Westpac Banking Corporation for over 7 years.
Katje Gibson, Media, Public Relations and Political Liaison
Katje Gibson has strong knowledge and experience in politics, public relations & media strategy. She started young by selling her first international article when only 16 years old.
Since then, Katje has headed public relation campaigns for tourism, large businesses and elections, garnering the likes of Discovery Channel, state and national news and national publication coverage. After running her own magazine for eight years (while continuing PR work and studying), Katje’s widely known reputation for hard work and community merit, resulted in her being headhunted and thrown into federal politics as head media adviser. Because of her acumen and regularly proven capabilities – she very quickly became Chief of Staff for the Hon Bob Katter MHR for several years (before her best role yet - becoming a Mum to her son!).
During her time as Chief of Staff Katje put her skills and strategic troubleshooting to work, leading the ever busy team through a pandemic within extreme political tension, dealing with the throes of uncertainty in precarious times in Parliament, and troubleshooting under extreme conditions. Along with communications, politics and dabbling in media law, Katje has also studied negotiation and conflict resolution.
Katje now assists GREAT as government / political liaison and putting GREAT and their incredibly successful journey to media, including heading a national media campaign shedding light on economic development throughout 2023, which saw coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Courier Mail, regular segments on Sky News, ABC TV and radio, Alan Jones, Al Jazeera – to name a few.
Currently Katje is continuing with product branding advice and heading a national campaign with two objectives – one, getting the message out to community about economic development, to empower people and break through generational cycles with strong and bold messages, and the other is to break dangerous racial stereotyping throughout Australia. This is achieved using out of the box thinking, pushing boundaries and raising awareness of societal and systematic issues, largely delivered via GREAT’s social media channels and other cross media and information platforms.
Brett Hart- Legal Counsel
Jason Donnelly - Human Resources
As the Director and Principle Consultant for FNQ Workforce Management Solutions, Jason brings over 10 years of Human Resources Management experience to GREAT’s management team. With extensive experience working across multiple industry sectors in the Gulf and Far North Queensland, Jason knows our people and knows the challenges businesses face operating in the region.
Jason supports GREAT with his people, culture and compliance know how across all of our operational, strategic and economic development initiatives.
