Tom Burns

On taking over the role of General Manager of SUEZ Water Australia & New Zealand, Tom inherited a team of 4 project delivery and 5 Engineering resources. The business had an annual turnover of less than $3 million being delivered on small Design and Construct or Construct - only projects and was struggling to deliver those projects successfully. 

This was due in part to the quality of engineering, in part due to the tender offerings and in part to a lack of support for the project delivery staff, many of whom did not possess the necessary experience, and who were not provided training or coaching where required.

Within the 3 years in which Tom held this position, the team increased to in excess of 25 and was actively delivering more than $50 million of work annually. This included Joint Ventures projects of values in excess of $100 million, directly managed projects of up to $150 million, and multiple smaller projects in the $2-25 million range which were profitably delivered directly by the business as Principal Contractor.

The team also worked consistently with the Tendering department to improve the tender offerings, and to ensure that on successful award these projects could be delivered as offered, and to the tendered margins.

This shift not only demonstrated the local capabilities of the business to the global leadership team based in Paris, France, but also transformed the SUEZ DB business into a credible and competitive challenger within the ANZ market place.

Tom was engaged to the role of NSW Operations Manager for Comdain, a successful Victoria- based civil infrastructure business but with no presence in the NSW utilities market. When Tom commenced, he was the only full-time employee within the NSW business and was engaged to roll out the works on the then newly allocated Sydney Water Corporation works delivery panel.

With this single Client and the associated indicative potential workload, he was responsible to develop, implement and deliver a NSW Business Strategy, (Budgets, Revenue and margin forecasts, etc.) through the systematic implementation of:

• Identification and securing of opportunities from existing Client;
• Identification, engagement with and development of opportunities from new Clients;
• Direct recruitment of suitably experienced and capable resources to deliver work as secured; and
• Ongoing management of the newly created team to ensure delivery success whilst also growing client base, revenues and margins achieved.

In only 18 months, Tom developed the business from zero revenue and people to secured work in hands in excess of the agreed business targets (over $20 million) being performed at or above agreed margins, and had engaged and developed a team of over 15 people which included Estimators, Project Managers, Engineers and Site Managers and Supervisors as well as tradespeople.

Tom's greatest success was undoubtedly in the rapid growth and development of a high-performance team and the identification and engagement with multiple new Clients which included Hunter Water, Jemena, and Bulk Water NSW all of whom are now key Comdain Clients.