Tom Burns

SUEZ Water Design & Build, Australia & New Zealand

Tom built, managed, coached and developed a team of Engineers and delivery professionals to work collaboratively with one another to ensure an outcome-focused approach was adopted when developing and delivering technical and practical solutions. team development included a quantum shift in approach to outcome-focused project delivery with business returns as a necessary success factor.

Direct involvement of the team in the pre-contracts environment, with tender designs, programming and scheduling, and procurement input led to an increase in the successful securing of works with reasonable returns. This direct tender input enabled a smoother transition to Delivery, with those involved being allocated to deliver the projects and achieve the agreed outcomes.

During his tenure, Tom successfully transitioned his team from one of sub-standard delivery with financial losses to a reliable team achieving design and construction milestones with exceptional Client satisfaction, and with positive financial return for the division.

Tom also carried direct P&L responsibility for the Design & Build business whose revenue increased from around $3 million on his commencement to over $40 million per annum.

Comdain Infrastructure NSW

Tom personally recruited all of the initial technical and business resources to Comdain in NSW, selected to fit into the culture he developed in the state. He was responsible for instilling into the delivery teams the need for high-quality work at all times, whilst ensuring that time and cost obligations were adhered to whenever possible. The open culture he created enabled all employees and subcontractors to voice any concerns they may have, identify any areas where they could see improvement opportunities, and have a direct conversation whenever necessary.

His governance of all projects meant consistency in delivery, openness in reporting and sharing of learnings across the business.

Delivery success was shown through the growth of the business revenue to over $20 million in the first 8 months of a full trading year, which exceeded the business budgeted expectations by over 30% which proved the success factors linked to the business culture, targeted and effective recruitment and instilling the right values into the team for delivery success.

Abigroup Contractors

Functioning in a business governance role, Tom's responsibility was to ensure that all works being performed where in line with business expectations. This meant that contractual compliance was achieved, whilst protecting business margins without compromising safety, quality or the environment.

Tom would be involved in regular meetings with all project teams, and would discuss all aspects of the project at hand. Financial management was always key to these discussions, and with projects where issues existed