Board of Directors

BA/Dip Ed, BLegS, GDLP, LLM, GAICD

Ms O’Halloran was appointed to the position of Chairperson in August 2019. She is currently a Special Counsel at NEW Law Pty Ltd. Prior to her appointment with NEW Law in April 2015, Ms O’Halloran was the Director of the Welfare Rights Centre for seven years where she also practised as a solicitor. Ms O’Halloran has worked as a teacher in both public schools and TAFE. She has been an active voice for the teaching community and is a former President of the NSW Teachers Federation. She has served as a member of the NSW Public Service Commission Advisory Board, and as a Director of Teachers Health, HESTA and the SAS Trustee Corporation.  

Ms O’Halloran was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2011 Australia Day Honours List, in recognition of her service to industrial relations and the education sector.

Ms O’Halloran is a member of the Board Remuneration Committee, the Risk & Compliance Committee.

BSc, A Fin

Andrew McCready is a Leading Station Officer in Fire + Rescue NSW and currently supervises their 000 Call Centre in Sydney. He has tertiary qualifications in Computing, Accounting, Financial Planning and Financial Services.

Mr McCready was a Director of Fire Brigades Employees Credit Union for eight years and Chair for three years. Post-merger with Teachers Mutual Bank in 2016, Mr McCready continued on the Firefighters Mutual Bank Advisory Committee.

Mr McCready is a member of the Audit Committee, Nominations Committee and the Risk & Compliance Committee.

Murat Dizdar PSM is the Deputy Secretary, School Performance – South at the NSW Department of Education. As a senior leader, Mr Dizdar oversees the provision of a quality public education for students in over 2,200 schools.

Mr Dizdar co-leads the School Performance division that provides support to 80,000 teachers and school leaders to deliver a high-quality education for over 823,000 students. The School Performance division consists of teams that are responsible for school planning, ongoing self-assessment and external validation, annual reporting and policy implementation. School Performance also oversees strategic partnerships in the arts, sport, high performing students, community languages and International students. Mr Dizdar presides over the Bushfire Strategy, that supports communities devastated by the 2019/2020 fires, and the Connected Communities directorate, that strengthens the educational outcomes for Aboriginal students.

Mr Dizdar’s career with the NSW Department of Education began as a social sciences teacher at Ashcroft High School. He has experience in a range of school leadership roles including being senior principal of Belmore and Punchbowl Boys High School.

Mr Dizdar holds a Bachelor of Education (Secondary Humanities) majoring in Economics and Geography from the University of Sydney.

BA LLB; GAICD

Verity Firth is the Executive Director, Social Justice at the University of Technology Sydney, leading the university’s Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion. 

Ms Firth has over fifteen years’ experience at the very highest levels of government and the not-for-profit sector in Australia. Over the last ten years, she has been working in the Australian education sector, first as Minister for Education and Training in New South Wales (2008-2011) and then as the Chief Executive of the Public Education Foundation. As Minister for Education and Training she focussed on equity in education, and how to best address educational disadvantage in low socio-economic communities, including rural and remote Indigenous communities.

As Chief Executive of the Public Education Foundation (2011-2014), Ms Firth led the Foundation's transformation from a fledgling organisation into a major provider of scholarships and support to public education.

Ms Firth was the Member for the state seat of Balmain from 2007 - 2011. Before her parliamentary career, Ms Firth worked as a lawyer and was Deputy Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney. 

Ms Firth is a member of the Nominations Committee.

BA LLB (Hons); DipEd W Aust; DipLib (NSW); FAAL

Professor Ford was a director of Unicredit since 1990 and Chair from 2004 up until Unicredit’s merger with Teachers Mutual Bank in 2015.

Professor Ford’s experience includes Barrister and Solicitor of Supreme Court of WA; Emeritus Professor of Law (UWA); Dean of the Law School, University of WA (2001-2011); Former Chair, Council of Australian Law Deans (2007-2011); Former Committee Member (UWA Branch) NTEU & Secretary UWA Academic Staff Association; and Former National Vice-President (Academic) NTEU.

Professor Ford is a member of the Board Remuneration Committee, the Risk and Compliance Committee, and the UniBank Advisory Committee.

Dip. Teach, B.Ed (Primary Education), GAICD

Linda Green commenced teaching in 1979 and is currently Principal of Robert Townson Public School. She served as a member of the Supervisory Committee for two years and was elected to the Board in 1997. Mrs Green is the Chair of the Board Remuneration Committee, a member of the Audit Committee, and the Teachers Mutual Bank Advisory Committee.

MAICD, MBA, BSc (Hons)

Mr Kearnan joined the Board as an independent Non-Executive Director in September 2020 and is Chair of the Audit Committee.

He is a Director of the Australian Shareholders’ Association, where he Chairs the Audit & Risk Committee and is a Member of the Policy committee. He runs an independent Corporate Advisory business, providing corporate finance and capital markets advice to financial services businesses.

Mr Kearnan has held Executive and Board positions at leading financial services institutions including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Hollard Insurance, Greenstone Financial Services, Complii FinTech Solutions, Colonial First State Group and Commonwealth (Life) Insurance Holdings Limited.

He is a past Member of the Australian Accounting Standards Board and has previously Chaired the Audit Committee for the APRA regulated Hollard Insurance entities. He was consistently rated as one of Australia’s top equity research analysts in the Australian financial services sector.

Mr Kearnan has an Honours degree in Science (Biochemistry), an MBA and is a Member of the AICD.

BEc, BEd, Grad Dip Acct, FFTA, GAICD

Mr O’Neill is an experienced senior executive and director with over 25 years’ experience in financial services. has a strong background in finance, risk and governance, having held roles as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer for NAB’s Personal Banking Division in Australia and Treasurer for the NAB Group. Mr O’Neill also has a background in risk management consulting and audit with KPMG. Michael holds a number of non-executive positions including Chair of the Board Audit and Risk Committee at The Royal Women’s Hospital and he was Chairman of Gymnastics Victoria from 2014-2019.

Mr O’Neill is the Chair of the Risk and Compliance Committee, a member of the Board Audit Committee, Remuneration Committee and the Health Professionals Bank Advisory Committee.

BEc , MComm, GAICD

Melissa is an accomplished senior executive with over 30 years’ experience in ASX listed financial services, energy and media companies including as Chief Customer Officer at AGL Energy, and Executive General Manager Retail Banking and General Manager Mortgages at National Australia Bank. Melissa has significant strategic, commercial and operational leadership expertise in new product development, market expansion, brand, distribution and digital transformation. Melissa is a member of the Board Risk and Compliance and Remuneration committees. Her other directorships include Independent Director at the Colonial Foundation, Director of Deep Brain Stimulation Technologies Pty Ltd and member Governance and Risk Committee Genazzano FCJ College. Melissa has a Bachelor of Economics from Newcastle University NSW, a Masters of Commerce from University of NSW, is a graduate of AICD and has completed the Advanced Management Program at Insead, France.