Speakers

Rochelle Hicks

Rochelle Hicks is the Deputy Project Director for the Coffs Harbour Bypass, a $2.2 billion upgrade of the Pacific Motorway located on the urban fringe of the growing regional centre of Coffs Harbour on the mid north coast of NSW. Rochelle has been a passionate leader of the project since 2019 transitioning the project from development through to procurement and delivery. Rochelle has a Bachelor of Environmental Science and over 12 years project management experience on road and bridge infrastructure work including Woolgoolga to Ballina, regional road upgrades, bridge construction and large scale demolition projects. Rochelle is passionate about growing and leading strong project teams, developing a culture of collaboration and innovation with contractors to effectively and efficiently problem solve with strong open communication. Rochelle will be presenting an overview of the project and sharing some of the new ways of working Transport for NSW have introduced with the Coffs Harbour Bypass procurement and delivery.

Dr Mark Apthorpe

The Minister for Energy appointed Dr Mark Apthorpe as the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Jobs
Advocate on 14 February 2022.
Dr Apthorpe is based in the Hunter and is the current chair of the Hunter Plant Operator Training School
Ltd (HPOTS) and the Hunter section of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT). He has
also held senior executive roles in energy and logistics businesses.
Dr Apthorpe’s most recent role was as a lecturer in management at the University of Newcastle. He
brings to the role strong networks in industry, education, vocational training, unions and a range of
relevant industry groups.

Fred Holt

Steve Brogan

Steve Brogan is Infrastructure Australia’s Chief of Policy and Research.  He is focused on fostering a culture for providing data-driven, evidence-led advice on nationally significant infrastructure challenges, on opportunities for reform and its prioritisation, and on monitoring the market conditions for infrastructure delivery.  Prior to joining Infrastructure Australia, he held senior commercial roles at Vodafone, leading teams to retain customers by earning trust through data-driven marketing solutions.  Inspired by the expanse of data that informs infrastructure decision-making, he is enjoying his current focus on bringing data together and unlocking new insight on the health of Australia’s nationally significant infrastructure, and on Australia's capacity to deliver the infrastructure it needs.

Humfrey Whitaker

Humfrey Whitaker has over 20 years’ experience building and leading high performing teams to deliver state significant developments and complex urban renewal projects on behalf of Government and private industry.

He has delivered industry recognised projects including the Blackwattle Bay redevelopment and the new Sydney Fish Market, Airds Bradbury Urban Renewal, Brooks Reach estate in Horsley - all in NSW, Hope Island Resort in Queensland, and Mount Barker Estate in South Australia.

In his current role he is responsible for leading all aspects of the Bay West Stage Urban Regeneration Project. Bays West is a multi-billion-dollar state significant development of 77ha of Government owned land located within 2kms of the Sydney CBD including the White Bay Power Station, Glebe Island and the land adjacent to Rozelle Bay and White Bay.  

His role is also responsible for providing expert and technical advice on the property development potential, commercial opportunities and optimum integrated economic development, while ensuring delivery of highly activated, resilient and connected places for the local community and the people of NSW.

Charles Casuscelli

Charles Casuscelli is the CEO of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC) representing the collective interests of Local Government in Western Sydney comprising an area of 8,000 sq km and over 2 million residents. 
Charles also serves as an Australian Defence Force Liaison Officer (Army) and provides advice to the NSW State Government on Defence capability and policy as it affects emergency management in NSW.  
Formerly he was a Member of the NSW Parliament Legislative Assembly between 2011 and 2015, and was appointed Chair of the NSW Parliament’s Transport and Infrastructure Committee.  
Charles has held a number of senior executive appointments in the public and private sectors, including agencies representing both the State and Commonwealth governments.  

In the early 2000s Charles lead the largest business unit of NRMA Motoring & Services. Prior to this Charles  worked in the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority as a Senior Executive Service Officer with a dual role, as the  NSW Transport Management Centre’s Project Director he was responsible for the building and  commissioning of the new facility in time for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. As General Manager he was  responsible for the development and delivery of a range of innovative road transport operations services  across the NSW road network.  

Charles has held a number of senior executive positions in the multi-national market research company  Nielsen, most recently he was Director Operations for the Pacific region. Charles has held various military  appointments on continuous full-time service as a staff officer in Headquarters Australian Defence Force,  Joint Operations and Land Command. 

Melvyn Maylin

Melvyn Maylin is the Director Program Delivery for the Albury to Parkes section of Inland Rail.
With a background in project engineering, Melvyn has more than 20 years’ experience in transport infrastructure
leading multi-disciplinary teams in completing significant projects and driving organisational change. He has
worked internationally in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Melvyn first joined Inland Rail in 2020 as the Delivery Director accountable for delivery of all phases of the
Albury to Parkes projects, and subsequently accepted a governance role with respect to the Tottenham to
Albury projects (now delivered by ARTC Major Construction Projects), and also responsibility for finalising
completion elements of the Parkes to Narromine project. Combined, these projects cover half the length of
Inland Rail.
Prior to his role at Inland Rail, Melvyn was the Major Projects Manager Asia Pacific South for Cardno and held
several senior roles at Opus International Consultants, including Group Director Transportation and Managing
Director, Australia.
Melvyn has won numerous awards for his technical excellence, including several Association of Consulting and
Engineers New Zealand Gold Awards and an AustRoads Bridge award.

Angela Jeffery

Angela Jeffery is the Project Director for the Sydney Metro – Western Sydney Airport project. Responsible for the delivery and construction of this multi-billion dollar city-shaping infrastructure project, the new metro service will form the transport spine for Greater Western Sydney, connecting travellers with the new Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport and the growing region.

With a background in construction management, Angela has delivered a range of critical projects for NSW Health Infrastructure, including several hospital redevelopments across Sydney and regional NSW.

Prior to joining Sydney Metro in 2020, Angela was the Senior Project Director working on the Westmead Health Precinct Redevelopment project, a large brownfield campus with a vision to deliver design excellence, innovation, place-making and consumer satisfaction. Angela has also delivered projects in the justice, education and local government sectors.

Dominique Gill

Dominique Gill has been working in construction for over 20 years. After working nine years in one of Australia’s largest building companies, Dominique established her own construction company in 2016. Urban Core is the first female-led start-up of its kind and is already defining a new generation in Australian construction. With annual revenues totalling $50 million, Urban Core have successfully delivered 200 projects.

In 2022, Urban Core won their first Master Builders Association of NSW Awards for Excellence in Construction. Dominique was both the National and the NSW NAWIC 2021 Crystal Vision Award winner.

Dominique is an industry pioneer of diversity and inclusion. A vocal champion for women in construction, she also actively encourages the promotion of the industry to a younger generation.  In 2022 she launched an exciting program, “NexGen” to address female representation in construction.  NexGen is a multi-state program where female leaders in construction present to girls’ schools and talk about the rewards of working in the industry.

Now counting more than 40 full time staff - 40 percent female - across two states, Dominique intends to continue growing her business to become one of the key players in the construction industry and to challenge the all-too-common perception that construction is a man’s world.

On top of managing a very demanding career, Dominique is also the mother of three beautiful school-aged daughters. She is a wonderful testimony that motherhood and career are indeed compatible.

Stuart Landrigan

Stuart is the Director of Infrastructure Advisory and Program Assurance at NSW Public Works.

He brings this position, experience gained from over 30 years of professional work that includes national and international roles in private and public organisations, including:

• Senior & Principal roles in Architecture firms in Australia and the UK
• Project Director at Health Infrastructure
• Senior Design Manager at John Holland

Stuart’s experience is predominantly in the delivering Social Infrastructure projects as well as a Housing, Research, Industrial, Retail and Defence.

At the University of Newcastle, he has been a Guest Lecturer for the final year of the Master of Architecture and the 6 years as the course coordinator for the Communications Module of the Master of Project Management.

Simon Vaux

Simon is an industry pioneer, who is well-regarded for successfully driving digital transformation throughout the infrastructure sector. As CEO and Co-Founder of DEOS Digital, Simon provides digital engineering advisory services for major infrastructure projects and government agencies across ANZ. He is also an author of national standards, leading sector-wide data management initiatives and driving broad uptake of digital twin and smart infrastructure solutions.

Simon was previously with Transport for NSW for 14 years, and led all aspects of the acclaimed Digital Engineering Framework program, from its initial vision through to industry-wide implementation. This program has been a significant catalyst for change, transforming public sector digital capability and driving a step change in overall industry productivity.

Simon also held various other leadership roles and was responsible for the engineering of major heavy rail projects in and around Sydney. Prior experience includes various client and consulting roles with Transport for London, London Underground and various transport projects around NSW. He is a regular speaker at public events, a mentor to young professionals and a keen promoter of civil and digital engineering.

Amy Kean

Amy Kean is a Director at Stride Renewables, Australia, a boutique energy advisory firm. Amy has more than 20 years of experience in energy markets across the public and private sectors, nationally and internationally, and has a background in Science, Arts and Law.  

Prior to establishing Stride, Amy was the NSW Government Renewable Energy Advocate. Amy has also worked at the REEEP, Clean Energy Council, Pinpoint Mastercard, Accenture, Hydro Tasmania and was a board member of Renewables SA, Renew and REEEP. Amy is a Director of ASX MPower and an advisor to the NSW Decarbonisation Hub.

Amy is a recipient of the NSW Green Globe award for Public Sector Leadership, the Energy Minister's Leadership Award and Services to the Duke of Edinburgh Award from HRH Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

Davina Rooney

Davina has led the Green Building Council of Australia since June 2019. 

Davina is a property professional with a broad range of sustainability experience, from environmental projects, not-for profit boards and overseas community development work, spending 8 months working in the Indian Himalayas on the construction of a school which won multiple international awards.

Career highlights include a decade at Stockland which was a global leader in sustainability and therefore understands how the GBCA’s global leadership translates into real-world outcomes. Stockland was recognised in 2016 and 2018 simultaneously holding the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Global Property leader, GRESB Global leader (Retail/Office) and recognised on the CDP Leaders A-list.

Davina has been recognised by industry awards including NAWIC NSW Sustainability 2016, PCA 2014 Future Leaders Award and Sydney University Engineering Young Alumni Award.

Nik Ruparel

Nik began his career as an Accountant, transitioned into Business Consulting where he worked with prominent FTSE 100 organisations before moving into Recruitment and assuming a number of Executive positions with leading Global Recruitment Consultancies in both the UK and Australia.

With over 20 years of proven experience in Executive Search and Selection and Human Resource Consulting which includes recruiting permanent and interim positions, managing single assignments and project-based recruitment that has involved the development and delivery of large-scale international sourcing campaigns. Nik has experience of partnering with leadership teams from government, private equity, not-for-profit through to ASX listed businesses, in delivering people and business solutions.

Over the last 5 years, Nik has been an active part of the start-up community, witnessing firsthand the trends and innovation shaping our economy; partaking in several forums, discussing topics that have included the future of work, the use of artificial intelligence in hiring talent, retention and attraction strategies in a constantly changing environment.

Furthermore, Nik, as part of ProNEXUS is working with peak bodies and education providers on identifying and developing skills for the future.

James Durnall

Jessica Evans

As a Client Relationship Manager at Taylor Construction, Jessica focuses on building long-term, genuine partnerships and is driven to provide the industry’s highest customer experience. Her business development and relationship management skills have been honed through her years of experience in the construction industry in both Australia and Asia. Additionally, Jessica sits on the Beneficiary Review Committee at the Property Industry Foundation (PIF), a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to bringing the property and construction industry together to build homes for homeless youth.

Pedram Danesh-Mand

Emile Rademeyer

Emile Rademeyer is Executive Director, Creative Strategy at VANDAL in Sydney, Australia. As an international leader in digital placemaking, VANDAL transforms physical places and spaces with digital art, placemaking and experiences that change human behaviour

Named as Expert Partner in Digital Placemaking for the City of Sydney, Emile ensures VANDAL delivers the most innovative projects using moving image, sound, art, interactive and augmented reality experiences for public, commercial and retail environments. 

Highly motivated with excellent communication skills, Emile’s recognised talent earns international respect and he is regarded as one of Australia’s most prolific creative trailblazers.

Vanessa Pilla

Vanessa is an urban planner specialising in strategic place-making and economic development. She has over 20 years’ experience working across not for profit, public and private sectors in Australia, Malaysia and the UK, advising on sustainable urban development and inclusive economies. Her background includes extensive experience in stakeholder engagement and creating shared value partnerships with government, business and community.

Vanessa is outcomes focussed with a range of skills across leadership, strategy, communication, research and stakeholder management. Her experience includes developing and implementing policy and strategy, delivering high quality programs and measuring social impact. She is passionate about creating a culture of social innovation in organisations to develop new ways of bringing value to communities.

Latoya Griffin