Chris Martin CEO

When Chris Martin joined the then Cairns Regional CDEP team as CEO in 2007, he brought with him years of experience working in community and government organisations. This experience combined with his visionary leadership, has helped the affectionately known ‘Cairns Regional’, now Indigenous Job Connections, to establish itself as a leader of CDEP programs throughout the North.

Chris has worked hard to broaden the operations of Indigenous Job Connections to make sure the organisation is able to keep supporting training and employment opportunities for Indigenous peoples in the North. “To be able to keep providing services, we need to be self-sufficient and not reliant on Government funding,” said Chris.

“To make sure we can provide training and employment opportunities that suit the needs of the people in our region, we had to diversify and find new ways to raise funds to remain viable,” he said. “Our goal is to diversify so we can survive economic downturns and keep moving forward and serving the needs and futures of Indigenous people in our region.”

This process led to the development of exciting business partnership activities such as Employment Services Queensland (ESQ), GOWorkwear and Bundarra.