In the Sp
STEPH DONN
The photo was taken at Groot Constantia in Cape Town (one of the first wineries in South Africa). I grew up about 3km from the winery and spent a lot of time there growing up. We took the family to South Africa a few years ago and went to Groot Constantia on a very wet and miserable day. Immediately after a lovely lunch we got into the car to drive to an old friend’s house. We were relying on Google maps, As we were driving, the area was getting dodgier and dodgier and as we pulled up outside the address in Google Maps 20 mins later we realised that we could not be in the right place. We quickly high tailed it out of there and realised that my friend lived a 4 min drive away from the winery we were at, in a very lovely estate with their own security guard and gate!
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Let’s hear your elevator pitch Stephanie to set the scene for our readers: I’m Stephanie Donnelly and am AECOM’s practice director for building services in Australia and New Zealand. Last year we made a conscious decision to operate as national practice and my role across the building services practice is to make sure we have teams with the best experience delivery quality projects for our clients.
Let’s start with your background. Many people assume by my accent that I was born here in Australia. I was born in South Africa, my dad is Hungarian and my Mum is from the very strong German community in South Africa. I grew up in a multi lingual household in a multilingual country before moving to Australia with my family when I was 15.
So Steph What inspired you to become a building services engineer and what path did you take to achieve this? I honestly did not know where I would land once I
