After VicRoads I went to work at the Victorian Department of Transport looking after major projects. When I think back, the projects we were working on now seem pretty small – at least in comparison to the scale of mega projects happening all over the country now! They were critical projects (like building new stations) that helped lay the groundwork for the engagement approaches that are used today.   

I worked my way up at the Department and eventually ended up in the Communications Director role. It was a great job with lots of exciting elements, but I ended up missing project work. That’s what led me to make the move to the private sector and join RPS. That was nine years ago!

Lots of rail infrastructure initiatives! One of the biggest pieces of work – in terms of the time and scale of involvement - has been my role as Engagement Director on the Aurecon Jacobs Mott MacDonald (AJM) Joint Venture. The JV provides technical advisory for Rail Projects Victoria and Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop project.

I've also had the opportunity to work on Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel, a whole lot of regional rail projects, Melbourne Airport Rail…the list goes on.

I still love my client work, but my role is also about connecting the communications and engagement work we are doing across different states and territories. I make sure we are presenting the best of our expertise and lessons learned no matter what area of the country we are working in.

If we're doing something really creative on a project in New South Wales, it’s about taking that expertise and making sure we are offering it to clients in Western Australia, Victoria, or wherever else our clients are operating.

RPS has one of the largest infrastructure engagement offerings in Australia and clients are coming to us for more than just ‘boots on the ground’ delivery support. They're looking to us for bespoke strategy and innovation. Another big part of my role is working with other National Leads in our business to bring our services together in new ways.

For example, how can we bring communications and engagement together with data analytics, economics or social advisory solutions? It’s bringing people and skills together in a way that works for our clients and projects, and that benefits communities.

There’s a lot of work going on in the renewable energy space at the moment, so supporting clients to navigate through the early phases of project investigation, feasibility and approvals is a huge focus.

The growth in offshore wind projects and related grid connections in particular is throwing up some interesting challenges to work through.

While communities are largely supportive of renewables, “engagement fatigue” is a real risk. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges we’re helping clients work through at the moment – managing cumulative impacts and building social licence when there are lots of projects happening in the same areas at once.

For me, it’s about having a really good risk radar. At the end of the day we are helping clients to manage risk and gain social permission to progress projects, so you need to be able to pick up on problems early, and join the dots between different issues and perspectives. This can create real opportunities for communities and stakeholders to be involved in shaping projects.

Great engagement consultants are good listeners. They naturally empathise and know how to relate to a wide range of people. It’s all well and good to go out with a set of key messages, but if you’re not listening to people and understanding their perspective, you’ll struggle to get those messages across.

Being successful in engagement is listening as much as talking!