“The purpose of my role as business leader is to foster and inspire the growth and performance environment of our team. Our involvement must benefit the clients and communities we work with, through both immediate impacts and the longer-term legacies that infrastructure can provide.”

A chartered engineer, Rob’s 30-year professional career has seen him in roles as a transport planner, project leader and business manager in New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa.

Rob describes his position and way of working as a ‘connector role.’ He wants his clients to access the best support and services from across the wider industry, and he is adept at fostering these connections. Rob ensures that the establishment phases of projects and programmes are fit-for-purpose and create a strong foundation for success. This success means Rob enjoys long-lasting and trust-based relationships with clients, community leaders, key stakeholders and the wider industry.

Rob remains involved in the large-scale NZTA Ōtaki to north of Levin (Ō2NL) project which he has been involved in since 2019. Initially involved as Project Manager and Project Director, as well as working in the Project Leadership Team, Rob was responsible for re-establishing the project and developing the agreed project strategy and outcomes. The outcome was an approved Detailed Business Case (DBC). Along with establishing successful project structures and processes, Rob created an enduring ‘results-based’ culture in the team, with core project management functions and technical requirements. More recently, Rob was the workstream leader developing partnership foundations and Agreements with Iwi partners (now integrated into the Owner Team and Alliance partners). This work resulted in genuine relationships and partnership support and legacy outcomes for the ongoing development of this important project.

As Project Manager and Owner Interface Manager for the Mt Messenger Alliance (Te Ara o te Ata), Rob was privileged to work alongside the technical teams and project partner, Ngāti Tama, to establish the project, develop the DBC and procure the alliance team, before seeking statutory (RMA) approvals. His time spent on the whenua with Ngāti Tama kaitiaki and other directly affected landowners provided a key perspective for the development of the project and required mitigations. Rob was also the overarching Programme Manager for the SH3 Awakino Gorge to Mt Messenger Programme, responsible for facilitating technical workstreams, stakeholder engagements and Business Case development across 3 Crown funded Accelerated projects.

Resolve Group’s reputation as a trusted advisor for clients was a drawcard to Rob as client satisfaction is extremely important to him. Joining the team in mid-2024, Rob quickly recognised the strong alignment of his own values with those of Resolve Group. He says that the opportunities for personal and professional growth, combined with a strong supporting environment, made choosing to join Resolve Group – a client’s own consulting team – an easy decision.

Rob offers his clients:

• A broad perspective on technical disciplines, processes and teamwork that collectively produce the outcomes clients seek from their investments.
• An ability to foster productive and constructive relationships across organisations and with community leaders who are highly influential in planning and delivering project outcomes.
• A passion for working directly within client teams, often leading them in early stages, to set up the approaches needed for future success. Rob loves to inspire with a positive ‘can do’ attitude.
• The experience to develop and deliver DBCs in line with the Treasury Better Business Case and Waka Kotahi Business Case Approach, which means smarter more transparent investment decisions
• Positive enquiry
• A proven technical background in engineering, transport planning, and project management fundamentals – which sit at the core of large- and small-scale infrastructure projects

Rob’s approach to life both personally and professionally is summed up in his favourite quote :

“Achievement comes from doing great things by myself. Success comes from empowering others to do great things for me. Significance comes from developing leaders to do great things with me. Legacy comes from putting leaders into positions to do great things without me.” 

John C. Maxwell

Rob’s ‘happy place’ is when he is with his active family and friends, ideally in nature with weekends spent surfing, snowboarding or skating. Rob can also be found utilising New Zealand’s great cycling and tramping trails and loves camping. His cycling pedigree has seen him compete in multiple endurance events such as stage racing (Wellington to Auckland) and the Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge.

Rob and his family have been fostering children in need since his arrival in New Zealand in 2016. He volunteers with the local Paremata Sailing Club and has been a trustee on the Hutt International Boys’ School Board of Proprietors.

“I’m passionate about helping cities to become more liveable and find their place in nature. Good leaders can change the world and I work to combine my passion for liveable cities and leadership skills to influence and inspire others.”

Louise’s career has involved transport research, work on smart cities, nature-based solutions, shared mobility and travel demand management (TDM). She has helped develop award-winning travel plans in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, aimed at reducing environmental impact and encouraging travel by sustainable modes. She has led teams charged with developing region-wide approaches to TDM and was actively involved with the previous government’s ‘Less Traffic, More Choices’ workstream. In 2024, Louise was awarded the  inaugural Transport Planning Society Aotearoa New Zealand’s Biennial Transport Planner Award.

Louise was the Technical Lead for Auckland Transport’s First and Final Leg Single Stage Business Case (SSBC), which designed a ten-year programme to improve the journey to and from Auckland’s 81 rapid transit network stations. She also co-led NZTA’s Let’s Get Wellington Moving –Travel Behaviour Change SSBC; the TDM workstream within the region-wide Western Bay/Tauranga Transport System Plan Optimisation Strategy; and a Queenstown TDM study. Louise played a key role in revitalising and setting up the Wynyard Quarter Transport Management Association. 

While at WSP, Louise worked on white papers including Future Ready Kerbside and Unleashing the Potential of Micromobility for the Last Mile; she was part of the team that wrote Data Opportunities for Intelligent Mobility for the Ministry of Transport; spoke to NZ Parliament about the future of mobility in Aotearoa and has been a panelist at various conferences and on Kim Hill’s Radio NZ Future Cities discussion. You can watch Louise talking about the 20-Minute City here.

Louise’s paper, Smart Transport Opportunities for Auckland, delivered as one of three, co-written strategic-advisory research papers for Auckland Council on their response to ‘smart cities’, helped inform the Auckland Plan Refresh and the Auckland Transport Alignment Project. Louise led the development of the On-Demand and Shared Mobility Roadmap for Auckland Transport which sets out AT’s response to the disruption and opportunity presented by the rapidly growing market for shared e-bikes, e-scooters, ride-hailing, dynamic car-pooling and on-demand shuttles.

Louise joined Resolve Group in 2023, and in addition to her work on the First and Final Leg SSBC and Western Bay TDM/Optimisation, Louise has helped Hamilton City Council complete a stocktake to inform their approach to maturing their travel behaviour change programme; established and run programme controls for NZTA’s $419m Crown Resilience Programme; authored a number of ‘lessons learnt’ reports and is presently leading a project to design a trial of nature-based solutions to reduce the risk of landslips on Auckland’s motorway network. 

Louise offers her clients:

• Value as a systems thinker who finds practical solutions to complex problems.
• The ability to communicate with brevity when needed (executive summaries, infographics, summary reports, dashboards). 
• An understanding of the ‘big picture,’ following up with an ability to build a system or set out a path to get there.
• Research skills and experience leading research teams (including published research).
• An aptitude for assimilating information and identifying patterns or themes (she enjoys numbers, statistics and spreadsheets).
• Experience as a project manager covering leadership, project controls, risk, programme (Primavera and MS Project) and commercial management.
• A qualified Project Management Professional (Project Management Institute) with training in Agile.
• Curiosity and a willingness to take on difficult challenges and novel projects.
• A ‘can do’ attitude with sufficient grit to get the job done, even when the job gets difficult.
• A collaborative leadership style and a talent for getting the best out of her team.

When not at work, Louise enjoys spending time in nature – walking her dogs at the beach and riding her horse in the forest. She likes to grow food and flowers in her garden (including some exquisite protea). Louise was drawn to New Zealand for its impressive landscapes, forest and coast and the opportunity to work in its growing cities and towns. Her indoor pursuits include cooking, listening to podcasts, Bananagrams and a voracious appetite for reading widely, including her long-running subscription to New Scientist.