1. What is your current role and main responsibilities?
   As National Director Project Management Savills Australia and New Zealand, I am responsible for heading up our Project Management business as related to Corporate Workplace projects and accounts at a national level, along with sharing operational management of our Victorian Project Management business.
   
   
2. How did you get into this industry?
   Post finishing my degree in Civil Engineering and Computing, I commenced working for a small civil works construction company doing estimating and sub-contractor management. I worked on a number of projects during that time, with one being a skatepark in Melbourne that my children now enjoy visiting (pre-COVID). I find that sometimes taking time to recall where you started as you progress through your career can be a grounding experience.
   
   
3. Tell us a little bit about your career
   From those early days in construction, I subsequently moved into structural engineering design consultancy, completing designs for high-rise apartments, commercial offices and sports stadiums, and from there progressed into client side project management and corporate real estate.
   
   
4. What has been your hardest career decision?
   Deciding not to relocate interstate in late 2013 to take up a significant career opportunity. The timing just wasn’t right.
   
   
5. What do you love most about your job?
   The bringing together of all stakeholders into a team to deliver common goals. Acknowledging and recognising everyone’s individual contributions along the way is something I find very rewarding and I’ve always loved that there are tangible, physical outcomes at the end of what we do that are constructed for people to experience and enjoy.
   
   
6. What motivates you?
   Teamwork and progression.
   
   
7. What makes a great National Director?
   The ability to listen, clear the way, coach and empathise.
    
8. What is your most memorable moment of your career?
   Every day has its memorable moments and there will be many more to come. Looking back though, one particular significant moment does stand out, which is associated with a very large commercial office and workplace project for which I was fortunate enough to be part of the delivery team early in my career. The building has a huge central atrium and during construction the whole internal space was filled with scaffolding to manage the installation of the internal atrium finishes. Once the finishes had been done, we arranged for the contractor to remove all of the scaffolding in one night, which was a significant achievement in itself. When the team and client walked onto the site the next day and viewed the open atrium for the first time, the scale of what had been achieved was breathtaking. I still get goose bumps thinking about it today.
   
   
9. How can clients, consultants and contractors work together better?
   Develop and maintain the “team first” work ethic and discuss and set the common goals as they change throughout the life of the project. Have fun along the way, everyone in the team has something to contribute.
   
   
10. What are some of the trends you are seeing in the industry?
    The pace of information transfer, communication and prevalence of collaboration tools via technology has increased considerably, enabling teams to do more with less time resulting in shorter project programs.
    
    
11. What’s three words that describe you?
    Resilient, honest, tall.
    
    
12. How do you manage stakeholders?
    Through building relationships based on trust and communication.
    
    
13. What do you do to keep learning and growing in your career?
    Ask questions, do sector research, listen and take time to reach-out and stay connected to my network.
    
    
14. What advice would you give to someone starting in the industry?
    The only constant is change, communication is key and never underestimate the time it can take to keep all project stakeholders on the same page, which is especially prevalent due the increasing pace of activity on projects due to new and emerging technology.
    
    
15. What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into the workplace?
    Try to stay away from the jargon, there is ‘no one size fits all’ approach to workplace design and the rate of workplace change is ever increasing. Each individual client and organisation will have a different approach and a different set of needs and goals for what is in effect the same activity which offices primarily provide worldwide, which is business development and administration. Assess, listen, research and learn as much as you can, take something from each project and see if it can apply to other clients and projects. All great design starts with the end-user in mind and try not to over complicate things, especially when it comes to technology; more often than not the solutions that are the easiest to use and most intuitive are the best.

Learn more about Savills Project Management services.