Kerry Robinson

Located in Western Sydney, Blacktown City Council is the biggest local government authority in New South Wales. In early July 2013, Kerry Robinson was appointed as general manager of Blacktown City Council. Kerry had more than 30 years of experience in the property industry, having worked in local government, private consultancy, and a range of private-sector development organisations.

Having grown up and gone to school in Doonside, Kerry has always had an affinity for Blacktown, and came into the role to bring corporate management and modern communication and branding expertise to the council.

“I have a long family history in Blacktown” Kerry states. “I went to school here, and council gave me a cadetship during my university town-planning course. So I started my working life here before moving on to a whole range of things including commercial property research, industrial land sales, and then working for a number of property developers, particularly Delfin Property Group, which was the largest subdivider of land in the country at that time, and then Lend Lease. For the past 13 years I worked at UrbanGrowth NSW.

A constant theme on this career path is that even while working for those commercial entities, a lot of my project work was within Western Sydney and a majority was in Blacktown, so I have got a long sort of linkage with Blacktown. When I was contemplating this position, it wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to be a local government general manager; it was more that I saw my history, the work that I had done, and my connection to the Blacktown area as an opportunity for me to make a positive contribution to the Blacktown community through this role.”