Infrastructure and Engineering
Infrastructure is ultimately about delivery.
We work with contractors, owners, developers, engineering businesses and project organisations across Australia’s infrastructure market.
Our work ranges from Board and executive appointments to project, operational, commercial, functional and technical leadership.
These are businesses where the quality of people can be seen in safety, programme, cost, relationships and ultimately what gets delivered. We understand that environment.
The Market
Infrastructure leadership has become more complex.
Large projects bring together government, contractors, designers, communities, joint venture partners and increasingly complex commercial arrangements.
The person who succeeds in one environment will not automatically succeed in another.
Scale matters. So does the delivery model, commercial setting, stakeholder environment and the person’s actual role in the outcome.
We look at all of it.
Our Approach
We look beyond the project name on someone’s CV.
We want to understand what they were accountable for, what they personally delivered, the commercial environment around them and what happened when things became difficult.
That is an important distinction. Being part of a successful project is not always the same as having led one.
Our job is to understand the difference.
The Roles
Our infrastructure work spans:
Board & Executive
Chair, Non-Executive Director, CEO, Managing Director and executive leadership.
Projects & Operations
General Managers, Project Directors, Project Managers, Operations Managers and other delivery leadership.
Functional & Technical
Commercial, engineering, finance, people, bids, strategy and other specialist leadership and management roles.
Leadership Advisory
Succession, talent mapping, assessment and market intelligence.
We work at different levels because infrastructure businesses need strong people at different levels.
A CEO shapes the business.
A Project Director or Project Manager can shape the outcome of the work itself.
Both matter.
Case Studies
Selected searches led by our principals
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An Australian contractor and its listed parent set out to rebuild leadership across the business. Over close to a decade we appointed the chief executive, human resources leadership, state leaders, and business development and strategy roles, along with the managing director of the Asian operation.
Sequencing mattered as much as selection. A chief executive appointed into an unsettled business needs the next appointments to reinforce the direction rather than test it, which means the searches beneath the top role are part of the same decision rather than separate briefs.
The business went on to become one of the strongest performers in the group.
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A contractor delivering a major Western Australian rail program needed operations leadership and a joint venture director.
Joint venture leadership is its own problem. The role answers to two organisations with different boards, different commercial positions and different views of the same risk. Technical capability is necessary and nowhere near sufficient. The person has to hold a partnership together while delivering to a client who cares about neither party's internal politics.
Engagement and Resilience carried the weight in the assessment.
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A listed Australian contractor needed a new chief executive and additional board capability.
Board and executive appointments made in the same period have to work as a set. A chief executive with a mandate to change direction needs directors who understand what that will cost in the short term and will hold their nerve through it. Appointing them separately, months apart, tends to produce a board and a chief executive with different timelines.
The business returned to profitability and was subsequently acquired.
Infrastructure
If you are considering an appointment or want to understand what the market looks like, we are happy to share our perspective.