Infrastructure for the Future Forum

Steve brings extensive experience across the local government and wider public sector to his role at the Taranaki Regional Council.

Steve joined the Taranaki Regional Council as Chief Executive in October 2019, and prior to that was the Chief Executive of Southland District Council for six years. Steve has also held Chief Executive roles with the Kaipara District Council (December 2011 – October 2014) and Thames-Coromandel District Council (December 1998 – December 2011).

Steve has also worked in a range of executive and governance roles across the health, tertiary education and broader public sector.

Of Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Ranginui descent, Steve was awarded a Bachelor of Management Studies from the University of Waikato, and is a Chartered Accountant Fellow (FCA) with Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

Natalie is a Partner in the Infrastructure and Merger and Acquisitions team's at PwC and offers a broad range of advice and transactional experience, with a focus on infrastructure and complex situations.

With over 15 years of corporate finance, banking and advisory experience, Natalie brings an extensive expertise in advising both Crown and private-sector clients. Natalie has a deep understanding of the challenges faced in the infrastructure sector in NZ, particularly on pathfinder transactions. Natalie also has strong international experience in restructuring, turnaround, and structured financing across the leveraged, M&A and project finance spectrum

Natalie sits on a number of project advisory boards and is a founding member of the Women in Infrastructure NZ Advisory Board.

In her spare time, Natalie can be found enjoying the outdoors with her family and golden retriever.

Kevin led our work on the local government response to Covid-19. He is now working on the water reform agenda. Kevin was the Chief Executive of Wellington City Council for 7 years and prior to that had CEO roles in England with Cornwall Council, an amalgamation of seven councils, and the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. Kevin also spent 13 years in the private sector, including a spell at Price Waterhouse Consulting. He also set up a successful tech start-up and ran a number of large divisions of FTSE 100 companies.

Kevin is married to Catherine and they have two teenage sons, Daniel and Jack. He spends his leisure time walking their two dogs, watching movies, playing masters football and mountain biking.

Duncan brings a wide perspective of the infrastructure industry founded on 28 years working across urban regeneration, social infrastructure, 3 waters, transport and building as a client, consultant and contractor. He has a passion for developing teams and solutions to solve how we can best deliver high quality infrastructure for New Zealand.

He works across a wide range of delivery models such as Alliances, Design and Construct, PPPs, Build only, and led the successful delivery of Pukeahu - the National War Memorial Park.

Duncan is the Executive General Manager of Strategy and Development at Downer New Zealand. He has responsibility for engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including central and local government, iwi, private developers, funders and designers across all components of the infrastructure sector. Good procurement practice and collaborative solutions are a focus. His strong project Board governance on the likes of Central Plains Water sit well with the drive to overcome ever increasing challenges of the infrastructure industry, resource availability and reuse, changing weather patterns, the need for innovative funding solutions, and broadening the workforce diversity and skill level.

Dean is the owner of Tuhura Consulting and is heavily engaged in the current 3 Waters Review. His governance roles have included chair of QuakeCoRE, board member of Infrastructure New Zealand and member of MBIE’s Building Advisory Panel. Prior to joining Auckland Council as Chief Operating Officer where he was responsible for supporting the city’s growth and delivering on customer-service expectations, including regulatory approvals, community services, region-wide capital works and facility management, environmental services and civil defence. He was previously managing director of AECOM NZ.

Geoff Cooper has a background in global policy having worked for the United Nations, the United States Treasury and the Federal Reserve. He is a former Chief Economist for Auckland Council, where he worked on infrastructure, housing, regulation and financial policy. More recently, as Chief Economist at PwC, Geoff has contributed to the economic appraisal of a range of large infrastructure projects such as Auckland Light Rail, Hamilton to Auckland High Speed Rail and Queenstown’s Way to Go programme.

Georgia Cottrell is a Senior Associate in Beca’s Transport Advisory practice in Wellington. She specialises in preparation of transport business cases, and has a background in strategic transport planning and operational management in the UK rail industry. Georgia has been working on Te Tupu Ngātahi Supporting Growth Alliance since early 2017, developing the transport networks for route protection to support the future urban areas of Auckland. Over that time she’s held various roles across the transport planning and business case disciplines. She is currently leading the business cases for the grade separation of level crossings and development of the frequent transit network in Takaanini, south Auckland. Outside of work Georgia is a keen netball player, avid reader, and dog lover.

Jim Palmer chaired the panel that undertook a two-year review into the Future for Local Government, which delivered its report in June 2023. In 2021, he retired as chief executive of Waimakariri District Council after 17 years. Currently, Mr Palmer is the independent chair of the Greater Christchurch Partnership. He is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, with experience as an audit director for Audit New Zealand and the Audit Office. Mr Palmer’s governance experience includes Chair of Riskpool, Chair of the Kaikōura Earthquake Recovery Steering Group and Chair of the Canterbury Chief Executives Forum.

Brad started his career in the financial services sector, before joining the (former) Ministry of Economic Development, now the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). He held numerous leadership roles at MBIE, including Acting Deputy Chief Executive Building, Resources and Markets, General Manager responsible for commerce, communications and consumer policy, and Head of the Office of the Chief Executive.

The Place-based Policy and Programmes group works with councils, iwi and others based in the community to understand how government policy can influence housing and urban development outcomes for people and communities around New Zealand.

Josh is a partner in Simpson Grierson’s finance group, with particular expertise in infrastructure funding and financing and local government finance.

He is the lead adviser to the Crown on the Infrastructure Levy Model enabled under the Infrastructure Funding & Financing Act 2020, and advises local authorities on debt facilities, commercial paper programmes, derivative arrangements, LGFA finance and participation in public private partnerships. His recent work includes advising the Crown and local authorities on the restructure of the LGFA borrowing programme to facilitate access to council-controlled organisations and advising MHUD in connection with the Housing Infrastructure Fund.

Raymond re-joined Taituarā in June 2014 as Sector Improvement Manager, before commencing his current role as Chief Advisor at Taituarā. He has spent most of the last 20 years in local government related roles, most recently with the Department of Internal Affairs.

He describes his job as two-thirds providing assistance to the local government sector and one-third providing advice to central government on local government matters. His ambition is to help develop a Local Government Act that doesn’t require changes every 18 months. He asks that you wish him well with this task.

Mark has been working in the UK and NZ infrastructure for around 30 years. After graduating in 1991 with a degree in civil engineering Mark has worked in UK and NZ local government and NZ central government primarily in transport.

Following a move to NZ in 2005, Mark worked for Hastings District Council, initially as their Roading Asset and Programme Manager and then as the Alliance Manager for the delivery of Hastings' water services and transport capital programme.

In 2009, he moved over to Waka Kotahi (NZ Transport Agency) as their State Highway Manager for Napier and in 2011 led the Maintenance and Operations (M&O) Review, which responded to the Government's policy direction to reduce the cost of M&O. This review led to the introduction of the Network Outcomes Contracts (NOC's), which are now the standard contract for state highway maintenance.

During the past 5 years, Mark has been the Group Manager, Network Strategy and Planning for Wellington Water Ltd, a council controlled organisation established in 2014 to look after Three Waters services for 6 client councils in the Wellington region.

In early 2020 Mark returned to Waka Kotahi the Programme Director for the NZ Upgrade Programme - Transport.

Andrew has three decades of experience in local government strategic infrastructure planning and development. He has a wide portfolio of consenting, design and implementing urban growth three waters and transportation solutions in partnership with major land developers, central government and other strategic partners.

Between 2013 and 2016 Andrew managed Hamilton city’s operational water business which included water and wastewater treatment and distribution and worked on initiatives such as the exploration of a potential three-council water CCO. Since 2016, Andrew has worked in a small team to secure the Housing Infrastructure Fund opportunity for Hamilton City Council’s Peacocke development. This work has resulted in a government interest free loan of $290.4m for significant transport and wastewater infrastructure which is now in implementation.

Andrew is now focused on representing Hamilton City Council in the three water reform programme, several major commercial developer negotiations and chairing the Waikato Region’s sub-regional water policy group. The latter is an initiative under the Future Proof growth project set up by central government, Waikato-Tainui, tangata whenua, Hamilton City Council, Waikato District Council, Waikato Regional Council, Auckland Council and Waipa District Council.