Global Speakers

Jonny is Context / Architects’ virtual building expert. He also does all the behind the scenes strategising that means Context / Architects IT systems are some of the most advanced in the business.

Before he joined Context / Architects, he studied architecture in his native Ireland and worked for a leading BIM software developer.

Jonny is an enthusiastic advocate of the power of Building Information Modelling. It’s a way to combine every element of a building’s design – architectural, structural, electrical, heating and plumbing – into one smart virtual model. It results in better designed, higher-performing structures that are easier to build.

In warmer months, Ironman Jonny also leads our lunchtime Context boot camps.

Ross Stevens has been a practicing Industrial designer for over 30 years with projects ranging from military urinals, designer televisions and recycle/reuse architecture. During his diverse career he has worked with some remarkably creative people including Philippe Starck in Paris. Ross is currently the Industrial Design program director at Victoria University of Wellington and co-owner/founder of Pureaudio. He has been focusing (some would say obsessed) with additive manufacturing for the past 15 years and specialises in multi-property 4D printing. Examples of his teams research can be seen here http://made.ac.nz/

As Chief Executive of Property Council New Zealand since 2004, Connal Townsend is the industry’s principal advocate for New Zealand’s commercial, industrial, retail, property funds and multi-unit residential property owners. Connal worked for a number of years in the finance sector. He was previously lead consultant to the Housing New Zealand Establishment Board (1991); a regional manager for Housing New Zealand; and a senior consultant with Deloittes specialising in strategic organisational development. He has recently been appointed as a member of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Building Advisory Panel. He was a member of the Rules Reduction Taskforce, the Government’s Technical Advisory Group on Resource Management Reforms (RMII -U), and a Founding Member and Chair for nine years of Auckland Council’s CBD Board. Connal is also a Justice of the Peace, a member of the Board of Trustees for Dementia Auckland, and a director of Dementia Auckland Foundation Ltd.

Andrew is a qualified economist with more than fourteen years’ experience in the built environment. Working for consultancies, associations, government and built environment charities, he has a wealth of knowledge in housing, market mechanism, advocacy and the construction supply chain.

Andrew joined the New Zealand Green Building Council in September 2016 as Chief Executive. The New Zealand Green Building Council is the country’s leading not-for-profit for the sustainable built environment. As well as exemplary research, the NZGBC oversees Homestar and Green Star the award winning certifications for New Zealand homes and buildings. NABERSNZ, the tool for confirming performance of offices in use, is also rising in popularity.

Kristen Gyorgak is the Queenstown Product Lead for the Mobility as a Service programme. Kristen has been working in a variety of roles for NZ Transport Agency throughout her four years. She brings through learnings from her background as a High School teacher into the government and transport sector. She has a passion for working with people with a variety of backgrounds and finding new ways to engage with customers, partners, and providers.

Tonchi Glamuzina is an experienced and sought after Project Director, having led some notable ECI, design and build, and tender projects, mostly in the Auckland area.  He is passionate about working with clients to unlock value from an end-to-end approach and getting involved early to apply some smart building practices to the design process. Tonchi is also enthusiastic about the potential new building materials, building methodologies and technologies such as BIM offer in solving issues of time and productivity on site.

Currently overseeing a number of large projects, Tonchi has an interest in team performance, leading Arrow’s design management team, as well as sourcing and developing talent in Arrow’s Northern region.

Director of Autonomous Vehicle (AV) programmes, pilots, funding and joint ventures for HMI Technologies Ltd. Responsible for promotion of AV strategies, pilots, business models and platforms that will support autonomous vehicles projects across Australasia. This role also interfaces with AI developments, IOT / EOT and supporting cloud based platforms.

Dave provides a direct interface to decision makers in both the public and private sectors and also facilitates interactions with legislators and road controlling authorities over legal and operational issues pertaining to the use of AV’s as licensed vehicles on public roads.

Mark’s rich background includes 24 years’ of professional experience in land development, enabling him to provide expert advice on project strategy, surveying process management and consent requirements under District Planning documents. His specialist areas include surveying technology development and subdivision advice.

Mark Finlayson honed his surveying skills on some of the world’s most innovative projects, from the London Underground and Middle Eastern oil rigs to oil pipeline surveys in Papua New Guinea and laying fiber optic cables throughout South East Asia.

Professor Marc Aurel Schnabel is the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Design, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and Visiting Professor of the School of Architecture, Sheffield University, UK. Trained as an Architect, he is leading research and education in the field of Architectural Technology and digital design. He has taught and worked in Germany, Australia, and Hong Kong for over twenty-five years and has become highly recognised for his work in the areas of computational architecture. He is Principal Investigator of the National Science Challenge, Better Homes, Towns and Cities, researching in the fields of augmented- and virtual reality, digital heritage, parametric design learning and inter-professional development. He has established the Digital Architecture Research Alliance, DARA, and the online social network Urban Digitalics connecting professionals and researchers of innovative digital spatial design.

Grant took up his role as Chief Executive of New Zealand Certified Builders Association in early 2012 after holding the role of Chief Executive of a not for profit organization in the rescue/service sector.

Prior to this Grant has been involved primarily in the residential building industry for over 3o years initially in various senior leadership positions for Fletcher Residential and then subsequently owning his own company focusing on internet technology in the building sector.

His strengths lie in strategic and tactical appreciation, understanding and managing complex stakeholder relationships, financial management and the strong but prudent management of growing organizations. Grant is continually excited by the challenges facing the building industry and the opportunities that are available for the sector to grow its capability, capacity, productivity and professionalism.

Jason is Warren and Mahoney’s lead BIM Manager and a Director of Warren and Mahoney Technologies. He has significant experience in 3D and 5D BIM modeling and was BIM Manager for the Willis Towers in Wellington (5D BIM), Terminal 3 International at Jakarta Airport and Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease in Sydney, and the Christchurch Justice and Emergency Services Precinct. Jason’s strengths are in design technology adoption, BIM implementation, project documentation delivery and digital workflow automation. He is passionate about design, technology, BIM and collaboration.

She is a highly experienced international Management Consultant who has delivered successful outcomes on a wide range of change programmes specifically within the construction sector both in UK and New Zealand.

As an experienced Management Consultant she has delivered successful outcomes on a wide range of change programmes specifically within the construction sector both in UK and New Zealand. In 2006, Amanda lead a party of 12 senior industry players to the UK on a highly successful study tour to witness UK best practice first hand.

Amanda is also a director and founder of The Academy of Constructing Excellence, a specialist training organisation dedicated to teaching practical knowledge on business and project excellence to future industry leaders through its NZIM backed Diploma and other short courses. In New Zealand, Amanda has carried out groundbreaking work on KPIs and Demonstration Projects with BRANZ and The Productivity Partnership.

Amanda has been a National Evaluator for the pan industry NZ Badridge Business Excellence Awards.Amanda has developed Frameworks of integrated supply teams for clients with repeat programmes of work such as schools, housing, high street branches etc. She has developed and implemented a seven step methodology for achieving tangible and dramatic improvements in delivery performance.

Her main area of focus in recent years has been in the area of Lean COnstruciton and Last planner where she has helped to rescue many projects from late programmes and help bring them in on time or early. Amanda has a wide range of experience in coaching and facilitating and regularly presents on Best Practice and Innovation across the world.

Associate Professor M. Hank Haeusler Dipl.-Ing. (Fh) / PhD (SIAL/RMIT) is the Discipline Director of the Computational Design degree at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, the world’s first Computational Design Bachelor degree. Haeusler is known as a researcher, educator, entrepreneur and designer in media architecture, computational design, and second machine age technologies and is author of seven books; and 50+ book chapters, journal articles and conference papers. He has taught and lectured internationally at several universities, is Professor at the Beijing Advanced Visual Innovation Institute at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Director of the Media Architecture Institute, Sydney.

An early innovator in the area of 4D modelling for construction, Barry is passionate about the benefits that easy-to-understand planning brings to a complex construction project.

Barry deployed the first 4D software and planning services to the construction industry, and is still the most experienced 4D planner worldwide.  He has worked on some 350 projects across the world.

As an acknowledged expert in innovative construction planning, he was a team member of the first LEAN Construction team, writing the rules for LEAN construction and assisting in the deployment of the LEAN tool, Last Planner, in the UK.

Barry’s work with 4D modelling has revolutionised the ability of the construction industry to use LEAN techniques such as just-in-time delivery. The accuracy in planning that 4D modelling delivers means that project planners can make accurate predictions of exactly what materials will be needed on what day. With just-in-time delivery of materials, the site is not clogged with materials waiting to be used, which was critical for Barry’s London projects where space was at a premium. Just-in-time delivery also meant major cost savings for large projects, as approximately 10% of stored materials end up being discarded due to damage.

Barry’s 4D work on projects in New Zealand has contributed to successful delivery. His work on the Forsyth Barr stadium ensured that all technical specifications were programmed for delivery in an appropriate place in the schedule, and contributed to the stadium being finished in time for the World Cup to be played there. His work as the planner for the build of the new wing for Waikato Hospital allowed the structure to be planned in meticulous detail.

Josh has avidly followed the developments within the drone industry since the first military drones were introduced. This passion led him in 2015, to present at both the Asia Pacific Cities Summit, in Brisbane and the Audacious Ideas Festival in Toowoomba on “How to survive the upcoming drone invasion.”

It was after the second presentation that both Josh and David Masefield (co-founder) found they shared a mutual passion for drones and identified gaps in the industry.  From this conversation they have since founded the World Drone Challenge.

Since creating the World Drone Challenge, Josh has been invited to present webinars to wide range of audiences including the beef and cattle industry and; maths and science students at Flinders University.  He has also written and contributed to a number of articles and has been interviewed on a number of occasions regarding his thoughts on drones.

Chris Vorster’s rich background includes years’ of professional experience in development. He has developed and implemented a BIM Implementation Plan for Projects that was adopted nation-wide, and later by the Australian teams. Chris also developed a special module-based training delivery system with individual training development plans for technical staff (called “ESDP” – Employee Skills Development Programme), used throughout the company by more than 200+ users in NZ, and more than 400+ in Australia and have successfully expanded company offerings and won projects for reo (rebar) shop drawings, steel fabrication drawings, construction sequencing and construction methodology visualization.

Angus is Structural Engineering Leader in Laing O’Rourke’s Engineering Excellence Group. Laing O’Rourke is a multi-national contracting organization with more than 15,000 staff worldwide and 4,000 in Australasia.

Angus has presented throughout Europe, the Middle East and Australia. He was a member of the steering group for, and is a contributing author to, the Concrete Society’s Guide to Design of Concrete Structures in the Arabian Peninsula, which was published in October 2008. His paper on the design of high-strength concrete columns was published by the Institution of Structural Engineers in March 2007.

Angus lives with his family in Sydney and is currently working on several projects, including: high-rise buildings; renewable energy developments; and large-scale oil, gas and mineral resource projects.

Roy has been mainly involved in MEP CAD design drafting, and software system development projects for the past 23 years.

Since early 2008, Roy has successfully led and completed a number of high profile/landmark BIM/Revit MEP projects across New Zealand, Australia and Asia, and has become one of the leaders of BIM/Revit MEP implementation and development in the industry with lots of first-hand project experience.

Roy has been speaking extensively on Revit/BIM topics at international conferences in Australia, USA and China and well as locally in New Zealand

As New Zealand’s Managing Director, Craig Davidson leads a team of around 600 designers, engineers, planners, and scientists across New Zealand’s five regional offices. He is a chartered professional engineer with over 20 years’ experience in infrastructure projects. In his career to date, he has overseen the successful delivery of projects in New Zealand, Australia, Asia, America and the United Arab Emirates.

Since joining AECOM in 1999, Craig has held a range of leadership roles including Regional Manager of the organisation’s Waikato and Bay of Plenty operations, NZ Transport Director and NZ’s Director for AECOM’s Buildings + Places business prior to his current role as MD.

Craig believes great design can transform communities, business and people’s lives.  His extensive experience in project delivery and client service has left him clear about the  importance of defining what  success looks like at the outset of a project and working with stakeholders to get alignment, understanding and ultimately ‘buy in’ to the vision.

Craig is also passionate about developing the next generation of infrastructure leaders and champions AECOM’s client service and diversity initiatives.

Andrew Booker is the General Manager of Housing New Zealand’s newly formed Business Innovation and Development team.

Andrew first joined Housing New Zealand in 1995 and has held various roles across a number of different business units. He started out as a tenancy manager on the frontline dealing directly with our tenants, led  the Crown entity’s contribution to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Programme as well as the cross-agency Emergency Housing Response Team.

Andrew is an active member of Housing New Zealand’s executive team, and brings to the table a vast amount of knowledge and skills.

He was recently appointed to General Manager of the Business Innovation and Development team.  He leads a passionate and dynamic team whose purpose is to drive, lead and develop new ideas and leading edge solutions to meet business opportunities and challenges, across the entire spectrum of state and affordable housing provision.
Prior to joining Housing New Zealand, Andrew spent eight years in the New Zealand Army. He brings to Housing New Zealand many of the skills he acquired in service  such as a no-nonsense attitude, along with excellent time management and organizational skills.

Andrew credits a lot of his success at Housing New Zealand to the knowledge he has gained throughout his career in different roles, experiencing many facets of the business. He’s a logical thinker, determined to do the right thing for the right reason and holds the customer at the centre of actions.