Dr Kerry Anne Bodle

team women australia board member & head of indigenous business, lecturer at Griffith University

Dr Kerry Anne Bodle is a descendant of Karendali, Kalali and Wakka Wakka First Nation Peoples.  Her grandmother, Moola Conbar, was assigned to a family in Gladstone on a Work Permit in 1900. She fell pregnant to a white man at the age of 29 and, because he would not acknowledge paternity, Moola was sent to an aboriginal settlement 400km north of Brisbane, called Cherbourg. 

In 1929 Moola gave birth to Kerry’s mother Margaret Fisher (Maggie). In 1932, Margaret was “stolen” and Moola died in custody on Palm Island, where she had been sent for breaking the law because she left the mission looking for her daughter.

Margaret was trained for home duties until she was 17 when she moved to Sydney, fell pregnant with her first son, married Ron Stone had four other children. The marriage was dysfunctional, fueled by racism and verbal abuse. In 1961 when Kerry was only 5 years of age, she left for New Zealand, and together with her twin sisters was moved into a Salvation Army home.

One year after leaving the home, at the age of 16 Kerry became a single mother with her first daughter. Five years later she married and had her second daughter. While the marriage failed, she remarried some years later and at 36 had twin boys. While raising the boys she decided to go to University (her life-long dream) to complete a Bachelor of Commerce degree. In 2003 she completed her honours and in 2013 completed a PhD. 

Kerry is the first Indigenous accounting academic with a PhD and CPA qualifications. Driven to do more for Indigenous people, Kerry won a prestigious ARC Indigenous Discovery grant for over $350,000 to research financial literacy and two other projects researching Indigenous governance. 

In 2019 Kerry became the Griffith Business School Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Academic Director in 2019 and completely indigenised the new Bachelor of Business Program.

She has a reputation as a subject matter expert in cultural competency, curriculum development with the intention of engaging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in education, and empowering Indigenous business owners in financial literacy, sustainability and business growth.

In addition to being a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics with Griffith University, Kerry is a chief investigator on the Australian Research Council Indigenous Discovery project for empowering indigenous businesses through improved financial literacy, a member of CPA Australia and Indigenous Accountants Australia and a strong and active member of the Griffith's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Committee, First Peoples' Employment Strategy Committee Committee, the Indigenous Research Network (IRN).

Today Kerry lives on the Gold Coast with her husband, where continues to work on building the capacity of First Peoples through research, teaching and community partnerships.