Dr Penny Burns, Chair
Founder of Talking Infrastructure, Penny guards the vision and provides strategic planning for the association. A prolific commentator on Infrastructure Decision Making, Penny curates our website.
Generally acknowledged as the creator of Asset Management as we know it, for the last three and a half decades Penny has promoted better infrastructure decisions making through Asset Management Quarterly International, her biweekly Strategic Asset Management newsletter, and advice to national and state governments. She was a contributor to the recent UN Handbook on Infrastructure Asset Management.
Jeff Roorda, CEO
Director Infrastructure, Economy and Property Services, City of the Blue Mountains
Our culture and training has been based on specialisation, fragmentation and GDP growth. This has created an imminent extinction event. We now need to reverse the trend. We now need connection, inclusion and a different set of questions about success as individuals and community. Planetary health is not an add-on, it is a fundamental change to everything we do based on connection and improving biodiversity.
The Infrastructure, Economy and Property Services Directorate manages the connections between Infrastructure, The Economy, Tourism and Place with a focus on sustainable economic development and facilitates holistic place management and place making. The Directorate is responsible for marketing and promoting the Blue Mountains as a national and international destination of choice whilst increasing biodiversity.
Ruth Wallsgrove
Principal Consultant and Director of Training, AMCL USA
Infrastructure assets are fundamental to the health and prosperity of our communities – to our whole way of life. Making better decisions about those assets in the context of what we need has been my mission for the past two decades, working with different sectors in many different countries.
A former director of the Institute of Asset Management in the UK and one-time General Manager of Strategic Asset Management at NSW RailCorp (now Sydney Trains), I now work with cities, power and transit in North America, including some of the biggest agencies such as PG&E and NY MTA. Co-founder of Women in Asset Management NA, I wrote Building an Asset Management Team with Lou Cripps of Regional Transportation District Denver in 2019. My current goal is to develop a non-profit Advocacy for Future-Friendly Assets in the USA, building on my work for UK Treasury on an Asset Management manual for better capital projects. The next step is a book, also co-authored with Lou, aimed at senior infrastructure decision-makers, provisionally called Stewards of the 21st Century: How to Succeed at Infrastructure Leadership.
Gregory Punshon
Director, Consulto (www.consulto.com.au)
The future is now, Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), Smart Cities, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Infrastructure for the Arts, Open vs Closed source development and implementation. These all change our lives, daily. We have only started looking at governance for this new world evolution. The WHO has issued guiding principles for design and use of AI in health. Governments struggle to understand and regulate social media. Smart Cities win awards, yet the value to the community is unclear to citizens. IoT is everywhere, how will it change our lives? Who is in charge of security?
Selecting appropriate technology, embracing the good, not just the new, good practice, rather than latest or ‘best’ — these decisions define our future. Supporting innovation, encouraging risk-taking, and growing our understanding of the possibilities and challenges we face, has never been more essential.
A hands-on technology leader and strategist, Gregory is a writer and editor in diverse fields in technology, education, and the arts. A career in heavy industry, defence, electricity, small business, arts, culture, asset management, publishing, government, and utilities lends a wide perspective to his understanding of current, and emerging trends. As an artist and co-curator, Gregory has a deep understanding of the importance of culture and Infrastructure for the Arts.
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