Session 1 Program

MEET OUR SPEAKERS

TUESDAY 28 SEPTEMBER | 11:00 – 13:00 AEST

SESSION 1: Changing Mobility Behaviour and Enabling New Travel Patterns: Lay of the Land in ANZ




Aneetha de Silva
Managing Director, Government – Australia & New Zealand

Aneetha is a senior infrastructure executive with over 23 years’ experience across the government and private sectors in Australia, South Africa and the Asia Pacific. She has particular expertise as an advisor, developer and manager of large infrastructure assets and services, especially in transport, telecommunications and property.  Aneetha is currently Managing Director Government ANZ for Aurecon Group and a member of Aurecon’s global board. She is Vice President of Roads Australia board and sits on the board of LaunchVic, the Victorian Government's technology start up agency.​

Aneetha has extensive experience in complex commercial and stakeholder environments and is skilled at aligning government and private sector interests to drive industry, customer and community outcomes. She is passionate about innovation, particularly the potential for new technologies to meet emerging customer needs and transform access to community services.​

Aneetha holds a Bachelor of Laws and Masters of Law from the University of Melbourne, has completed executive education at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.​




Hon. Ben Carroll MP
Minister for Public Transport, Victorian Government

Ben Carroll was born and raised in Airport West where his family have lived for over 40 years. Ben has over 15 years’ worth of experience in public service, including as a lawyer for the Victorian Government, and adviser to Victorian Premier Steve Bracks.

First elected as the Member for Niddrie on the 24th of March 2012, Ben was appointed the Minister for Industry and Employment in October 2017. In this role he oversaw the implementation of Australia’s first ever local jobs first legislation and Australia’s first Social Procurement Framework. 

Following the 2018 Victorian State Election Ben was appointed the Minister for Crime Prevention, Corrections, Youth Justice and Victim Support. In his time as a Justice Minister Ben progressed significant reforms for victims of crime, delivered a new 10 year Youth Justice Strategic Plan, and championed new initiatives to address the root causes of crime through jobs, housing and community participation.

In June 2020 Ben was appointed the Minister for Transport, Roads and Road Safety.




Bernard Salt
Managing Director, The Demographics Group

Bernard Salt is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading social commentators by business, the media and the broader community.

Bernard heads The Demographics Group which provides advice on demographic, consumer and social trends for business.

Prior to that Bernard founded KPMG Demographics. 

He writes two weekly columns for The Australian newspaper and was an adjunct professor at Curtin University Business School between 2010 and 2020.

In conjunction with KPMG Australia he hosted a top-rated podcast called “What Happens Next” which discussed rising trends and important business issues.

Bernard is one of the most in-demand speakers on the Australian corporate speaking circuit.

He is well known to the wider community for his penchant for identifying and tagging new tribes and social behaviours such as the ‘Seachange Shift’, the ‘Man Drought’, ‘PUMCINS’ (pronounced pumkins) and the ‘Goats Cheese Curtain’.  

He is perhaps best known for popularising the phrase “smashed avocado” globally.  

Bernard was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2017 Australia Day honours.



 

Nick Foa
Head of Transport Services, Department of Transport, Victoria

Nick Foa was appointed Head of Transport Services in July 2020, overseeing the state’s infrastructure needs for transportation and working with a range of public and private partners.  Nick brings to the department extensive leadership experience in infrastructure and government administration, having served in several diverse public sector roles over the past 28 years.

Since April 2020, Nick has been the Associate Secretary of the Department of Transport, overseeing day to day operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

From September 2019, Nick was Chief Executive Officer of the government’s Suburban Rail Loop Authority. The SRLA is planning and developing the transformational Suburban Rail Loop project, a 90km rail network connecting Melbourne’s middle suburbs that will change the way people move around and enhance the liveability of key growth areas. 

Prior to SRLA, Nick was a Deputy Secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, overseeing an $8 billion infrastructure project pipeline encompassing sport, health and housing.

Nick has completed a Master of Business Administration from Swinburne University, the Australian and New Zealand School of Government’s Executive Fellowship and the Company Directors course with the Australian Institute of Company Directors.



Iris Stewart
Transportation Industry Director, Victoria & South Australia, Aurecon

Iris is a transport industry expert who brings a fresh perspective to our mobility solutions. With a  background in marketing, technology and the legal sector both in Australia and internationally, Iris is able to take a non-traditional and more holistic approach to travel demand management, ensuring that community needs are met, that innovative solutions are found and that the legislation needed to make change happen is considered early on. As Industry Director for Transport across Victoria and South Australia for international engineering, design and advisory company Aurecon, Iris is leading, growing and nurturing Aurecon’s Transport business, through 

Iris has deep insights into the Transport industry, including global trends, and uses these to help client mastery.

“I’m extremely good at one thing. And that’s helping the transport sector reach where we need to be, by taking a passenger-centric view that aligns engineering excellence with a commercial understanding in a public context.”

Iris’ experience includes more than 15 years focussing on strategy, planning, project management, program design, go to market delivery, omnichannel strategies and deployment, sales planning and training, team management, technology and associated deployment. This diverse background provides her with valuable insights on how to achieve people, client and delivery excellence, whilst achieving tangible outcomes for the transport sector.




Natalie Reiter 

Deputy Secretary - Policy, Precincts & Innovations, Department of Transport,  Victoria

Natalie is a dynamic and highly motivated Executive with a strategic mindset. Natalie is Deputy Secretary of Policy, Precincts and Innovation at the Department of Transport, Natalie has had a diverse career with senior executive roles in local and state government. In her current role, she leads the strategy underpinning the creation of Melbourne’s transport precincts.

Natalie thrives on her ability to build, lead and grow highly constructive, engaged and aligned teams that achieve outstanding results.

Natalie has enjoyed a diverse career and leverages this breadth on a day to day basis. Today, Natalie’s focus is on bringing the Transport Precincts to fruition, as well as developing and providing excellence in linking transport plans to the broader stakeholder cohort.

Natalie’s team seeks to translate transport and land use visions (strategies, policies & plans) into practice through collaboration with stakeholders and providing guidance and requirements for the planning, improvement, maintenance and operation of transport precincts and the transport network.

Natalie enjoys pondering behavioural management and how a sense of place impacts on the lives of community.



Mark Lambert
Executive General Manager - Integrated Networks, Auckland Transport 

Mark is the Executive General Manager at Auckland Transport responsible for the development and operation of public transport services and the construction of new and asset planning and maintenance of existing transport (road corridor and public transport) infrastructure and facilities across the Auckland region. 

Mark has overseen the transformation and evolution of the Auckland public transport service network over the last 15 years.  He has seen the use of public transport more than double in that time with Auckland contributing to over 60% of New Zealand public transport use, and being amongst the top three in the World under the UITP Global Index for public transport rate of use growth.  In recent years, Mark’s current role has enabled closer integration of transport infrastructure and asset development and management with public transport service delivery.

Mark studied Construction Engineering and Management at Loughborough University in the UK.  He spent the first 10 years in construction and infrastructure project management in the UK and Europe on various public and private sector projects including public private partnership procurements.  Mark moved to New Zealand in 2003 working for Ernst & Young before joining Auckland local government in public transport in 2004.

Tilly Loughborough
General Manager - Passenger Experience, Metro Trains Melbourne

Tilly Loughborough joined Metro Trains Melbourne as General Manager Passenger Experience in July 2019, and is accountable for almost 2000 people across the overall Customer Experience, 222 Stations portfolio, Authorised Officers and the Passenger Relations team.

With more than 15 years of global experience, at board level, Tilly has an in-depth knowledge of public transport operations and a specialism of putting the customer at the heart of all decisions, from design through to delivery. With senior roles across multi-modal transport businesses in the UK, Middle East and Australasia, Tilly has worked for First Group, Serco, Abellio, Transport for Greater Manchester and a number of other public and private sector organisations. In addition to transport, Tilly’s background includes roles in the field of criminal justice, higher education and retail.



Greg Pollock
Chief Officer and Managing Director, Transdev New Zealand

Greg joined Transdev Australasia’s Executive team in early 2020, appointed to the newly created role of Chief Officer of New Zealand.

Greg is a proven leader with 25 years’ experience in the public and private sectors, and a compelling skill set covering organisational transformation, transportation, dispute resolution, urban planning, stakeholder engagement and strategy.

Leading Transdev’s team of close to 1,400 employees in New Zealand, Greg is committed to ensuring we continue to improve public transport services in the communities we operate.

Transdev’s New Zealand team operates Auckland’s and Wellington’s metropolitan rail networks, as well as bus and charter services in the two cities operating as Howick & Eastern and Mana Newlands.

Before joining Transdev, Greg was General Manager, Public Transport at Greater Wellington Regional Council where he was responsible for the management of Metlink’s bus, rail and ferry networks.

He has also held the positions of Managing Director at Pollock Consulting, Chief Executive of FairWay and Business Director at Beca.

Greg holds a Master of Resource and Environmental Planning, and has also completed a Diploma in Business Studies, at Massey University in Auckland.