Our People

Barry is a Balladong, Yued, Wadjuk Nyungar who is highly regarded as a public speaker, facilitator and negotiator. Barry has worked as a consultant and cultural advisor for Local, State, and Federal Government. In addition to his role as Managing Director of Redspear Safety and Director of Safespear, he also serves on the Noongar advisory committee of the Perth Festival as well as Aboriginal advisory to Chevron Australia and a Patron for Fremantle Press. This allows him to exercise his passion for sharing cultural understanding and safety across all nations of Australia.

Liza is a Bidjara, Ghangulu and Iman woman originally from Rockhampton in Central Queensland. She has extensive senior management experience and holds a number of directorships across a broad range of sectors.

Liza has numerous business interests and is the co-founder of Redspear Safety and Safespear. Both of these businesses provide high-end business critical products and services to the mining, construction, medical and oil and gas sectors. Most recently, Safespear has been directly involved in the fight against COVID-19 by providing negative pressure isolation room capability as part of its innovative atmospheric control solutions. Her contribution to the small business sector in Australia resulted in her appointment as a judge in the TELSTRA BUSINESS OF THE YEAR AWARD in 2017.

Liza is passionate about economic and community development in Aboriginal communities and to this end, serves as a director on the boards of the Spear Foundation, the Foundation for Indigenous Sustainable Health (FISH) and BINAR Sports. These organisations work together to make targeted interventions in a range of areas which include children and youth, Elders and the justice system.

Francois has had an international career as a senior executive in a range of industries across four continents. These include extensive and particularly diverse roles in operations, education, strategy and social performance across both the for-profit and not for- profit sectors.

Francois is one of the founding directors of the Spear Group of Companies
which operates in the mining, oil and gas and defence sectors and has managed the company’s expansion across Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland and the Middle East.

He currently serves as the Chairman of the Black Swan State Theatre Company of Western Australia in addition to holding directorships with the Spear Foundation and NACare Pacific, a charity focussed on education in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

In 2017, Francois was included as a winner of the 40under40, an award which celebrates Western Australia’s leading entrepreneurs under the age of 40.

With a background in law and many years’ experience in the Justice space, Dawn is passionate about justice reform for Aboriginal people. In the last 15 years Dawn has managed numerous successful NGO community intervention and prevention programs in the justice space, including: WA Police & Community Youth Centre and YouthCARE. Dawn is currently a Governing Council Member of South Metropolitan TAFE and is highly experienced in governance, change management, policy and reform framework development and implementation.

She shares the other Directors’ passion for social change, especially in the Justice Space and will be instrumental in making a success of the Djeelya Impact Program.

Youth Director at The Spear Foundation, Tjiirdm also works full-time in logistics. A performing artist and cultural dancer continuing his late grandfather’s legacy, he has been FISH’s Creative Ambassador since 2017, appearing in Three Summers, Featherfoot, Firebite, Wirnitj and ABC’s MaveriX. Former WA State U17s AFL, he blends cultural leadership, sport and operational know-how to mentor young people and build strong community connections.

Becky has worked Liza, Barry and Francois, since the inception of RedSpear and SafeSpear businesses providing marketing assistance and guidance.

With over 30 years’ experience in industry as a marketing professional, Becky’s career is now focussed on a desire to provide service to the community and is dedicated to this role in managing the Spear Foundation.