SESSION 5 PROGRAM



MEET OUR SPEAKERS

THURSDAY 21 OCTOBER | 11:00 – 13:00 AEDT

SESSION 5: We’ve Got a Ticket to Ride – Fighting Fit For Our Future




Stephanie Wiggins
Chief Executive Officer, LA Metro

The Board of Directors of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) voted to hire Stephanie Wiggins as Metro’s CEO on April 8, 2021. A lifelong trailblazer and champion of equity and inclusion, Wiggins is the first African American woman to lead the agency. As CEO of Metro, she oversees an agency that runs the third-busiest transit system in the United States and serves as the lead transportation planning, programming, and financing agency for the 10.1 million residents of LA County. Before rejoining Metro as CEO in June 2021, Wiggins served for two-and-a-half years as CEO of Metrolink, the nation’s third-largest passenger rail system covering 538 route-miles throughout Southern California.  

Prior to serving as CEO of Metrolink, Wiggins was the Deputy CEO of Metro, where she assisted the CEO in providing leadership and achieving strategic public transportation objectives, including the passage in 2016 of Measure M, a half-cent sales tax approved by 71 percent of LA County voters. She also established the Women and Girls Governing Council. During her tenure at Metro, Wiggins also served as the Executive Director of Vendor/Contract Management, where she implemented procurement streamlining initiatives and greatly expanded Metro’s contracting of small and historically underutilized businesses. Prior to that role, Wiggins was the Executive Officer and Project Director of the Congestion Reduction/ExpressLanes Program where she launched the first high occupancy toll lanes in LA County on the I-10 and I-110. 

With a deep and genuine commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, Wiggins strives to provide all people living in Southern California equal access to mobility to get to work, school, healthcare and leisure activities. Achieving that goal depends on leading an organization that is as diverse and inclusive as the region it serves.  




Sam Linke
Integrated Transport & Mobility Capability Leader, Aurecon

Sam is passionate about the power of integrated transport planning to create a better future. She believes that visionary, inclusive, and adaptable planning is at the heart of creating smarter, safer, and more liveable cities. As international engineering, design, and advisory company Aurecon’s Global Capability Leader for Integrated Transport & Mobility, Sam brings a diverse skillset of planning, technology, and engineering to increase resilience of and reduce pressure on our public and private transport services.

Sam leads a team that undertakes planning, analysis, and design of transport and places that integrate seamlessly. Aurecon’s ITM capability works across full project lifecycles, providing strategic advice early to anticipate evolving mobility and market needs, delivering insight-driven analytics and design, through to efficient operations. Sam facilitates connection, collaboration, excellence, and innovation in the ITM network.  

Sam has experience in leadership and delivery of complex transport infrastructure projects, and specialist expertise in pedestrian planning and modelling. She has a strong commercial and risk focus, and is adept at bringing together diverse teams that are shaping the future of cities and the transport networks that keep people and goods moving.



 

Catherine Rooney
Executive Director - Strategy, Innovation and Data Insights, Department of Transport, Victoria   

Catherine Rooney is Executive Director - Strategy, Innovation & Data Insights at the Victorian Department of Transport, leading development of transport and customer strategies, provision of customer and transport system insights and imbedded understanding of the user and innovative transport technology.

Prior to her current role, Catherine led Infrastructure Victoria’s research program and the update of their 30-year Infrastructure Strategy.  She has also been Executive Director, System Reform at the Department of Economic Development, Transport, Jobs and Resources, and before that spent number of years as Assistant Director at the Department of Treasury and Finance. 

In addition to her public sector experience, Catherine spent a decade working for The Allen Consulting Group and Deloitte on a range of infrastructure, energy, and social policy issues.




Michelle Batsas
Executive Director, UITPANZ 

Michelle Batsas is the Executive Director of the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) in Australia and New Zealand, advocating for best practice public transport and sustainable mobility solutions for the region. Michelle is a senior executive with broad and diverse experience across management, strategy, governance, events, communications and policy. She has held senior roles at Public Transport Victoria and VicRoads, leading large teams through transformational change in order to realise the best outcomes possible for users of an integrated transport network. Michelle is a qualified lawyer and prior to entering the world of transport, she worked in the justice and emergency management portfolios of the Victorian Government. She is passionate about promoting urban mobility for the benefit of customers and broader communities. 




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.




Sally Stannard
Acting Deputy Director-General (TransLink)
Department of Transport and Main Roads

Sally is the acting Deputy Director-General of the Department of Transport and Main Roads and the head of TransLink, where she leads the delivery of customer-focused passenger transport services across Queensland including policy, planning, ticketing, contract management and customer services. 

TransLink Division is responsible for the integrated rail, bus, ferry and tram network in South East Queensland; and long-distance rail, coach and aviation services in regional, rural and remote Queensland, in addition to school transport, personalised transport and demand responsive transport services.

Sally has qualifications in Engineering and International Studies and is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.




Joost de Kock
Deputy Secretary Customer Strategy and Technology, Transport for NSW

Joost joined Transport for NSW (TfNSW) in March 2020 as Deputy Secretary Customer Strategy and Technology. Prior to this, he was the General Manager Enterprise Transformation at Services Australia. He is a former Partner, Managing Director and Senior Advisor in the Sydney office of Boston Consulting Group where he was a member of BCG’s global Public Sector and Technology Advantage Practices, and the global IT in government topic leader. Joost’s career has been built around his ability to set strategy, define technology-driven reform and deliver customer-centric solutions. These are the skills he brings to his role at TfNSW where he is responsible for leveraging data and insights, new technologies, innovative solutions and partnerships to provide improved, integrated customer-centred solutions and develop long-term strategies, plans and policies for the Transport Cluster. 




Jeremy Yap
Deputy CEO, LTA Singapore 

Mr. Jeremy Yap is the Deputy Chief Executive, Public Transport, Policy and Planning at the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore with effect from 1 April 2015.  In his current portfolio, Jeremy oversees the Public Transport, Policy & Planning, as well as the Active Mobility & Vehicle Services Groups in LTA. 

Jeremy is called to the Singapore Bar and is an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court and a lawyer by training.  He practised law in Singapore for 6 years before joining LTA in March 1997.

Jeremy was seconded to Singapore’s Ministry of Transport in 2004 as Deputy Director (Land) to help oversee land transport policy matters.  After serving 3 years at the Transport Ministry, he returned to LTA and was appointed Group Director, Vehicle and Transit Licensing and the Registrar of Vehicles in April 2008.

As Group Director, Policy & Planning from April 2010 to September 2014, Jeremy directed the formulation, review and implementation of land transport policies and the planning (including the safeguarding and protection) of transport infrastructure and systems, and was instrumental in the roll-out of the First Land Transport Master Plan.

In his current capacity as Deputy Chief Executive, Jeremy was key to the development and recent launch of the Land Transport Master Plan 2040. 

On the UITP front, Jeremy served as the Chairperson for the Organising Authorities Committee from 2015-2019.  

Currently, Jeremy is a member of the UITP Executive Board as Vice President and serves as the Chairperson for the Organising Authorities Division from 2019-2021.