10 minute read
Z Emerging Leader Award
The Z People Awards were developed by Civil Contractors NZ, with support and sponsorship from Z, to recognise the outstanding achievements of individuals within the civil construction industry.
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Kaitlin Van Schaik Z People – Emerging Leader
CCL Construction Contracting
Kaitie brings her warm and enthusiastic personality to every project and every meeting. She has a natural ability to lift everyone’s spirits and win them over with her positivity and humour. As a young and developing leader she doesn’t shy away from the challenging aspects of project management and is eager to learn from her in-house mentors. Her leadership style is still developing but she is emerging as an articulate and proactive leader with a broad knowledge base. She never shies away from any task and is always working hard to find the answers to the current challenge. She leads with a clear and effective communication style, drilling down through detail to the essential and important matters.
Thomas Innes Z People – Emerging Leader
CCL Construction Contracting
He has a humble, friendly, collaborative leadership style which has quickly earned him the respect of his peers. He eager to learn and actively observes and absorbs information from his fellow project managers and mentors making big discoveries around the importance of systems, processes and planning. Thomas is quick to give credit and praise to others where they have done something good and at management meetings shares value stories and gives positive feedback on team performance. He approaches the project work as a team effort and celebrates success at team level treating everyone as equally important. Thomas brings a fresh, creative, problem solving enthusiasm to CCL and the industry as a whole. He is well-informed on new technology and has already come up with some outside the square ideas that have surprised and impressed our senior engineers.
Sam Williamson Z People – Emerging Leader
Fulton Hogan
Sam is a geospatial professional, who is passionate about building technology solutions for the horizontal infrastructure industry. Before joining Fulton Hogan’s Engineering Solutions team just over a year ago, Sam worked as a Geospatial Consultant for seven years, over which time he developed broad expertise developing GIS solutions for Utilities and Local Government. Joining Fulton Hogan has enabled Sam to contribute to New Zealand’s 3-Waters infrastructure industry from a contractor’s perspective, and he has been building smart GIS applications for Fulton Hogan’s operations and maintenance teams. He has also since become involved in the wider areas of the civil industry, where he has contributed his skills in GIS, and has been helping to interpret and develop Fulton Hogan’s approach to digital engineering, including Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology and processes, for infrastructure construction and asset management, including roading.
Read about the winners and finalists from the people and companies who nominated them.
George Stick Z People – Emerging Leader
Geovert
On his journey into leadership, George reaped benefits from mentoring relationships with three different General Managers at Geovert. His interest in people and management and his inquisitive nature to ask questions inspired him to look into the Geovert culture and to understand the values that each GM embedded into the company. Over 2017 – 2018, George learned that family values, open communication and elements of fun were key building blocks. From 2019 to 2021, George’s close relationship with the next GM - a manager George admired because of his technical knowledge and drive and leadership of the overall company further expanded his understanding of leadership. In 2021, George had the opportunity to work with the company’s first female GM and he continues to relish her mentorship today as he gains insight into the benefits of a structured approach to management where respect for the technical knowledge of the team is highly valued and the health, safety and wellbeing of everyone is front and centre.
Pavan Satish Z People – Emerging Leader
Brian Perry Civil
Pavan is known as a “go-to” guy on site. People look to him to make things happen. If anything is on the critical path that needs to be completed, Pavan will give his best to reach the milestone. He always tries to translate site complexity into something real that people can understand and be moved by. Pavan is proactive, reliable, dependable, and always willing to get stuck in – he doesn’t shy away from a challenge. Pavan takes on any role when needed, from supervisor and safety officer to concrete placer, steel fixer, temporary design coordinator and more. He isn’t one to be strictly confined by his role description. Pavan has participated in and completed the Fletcher Building ‘Step Up’ Leadership Course, having been nominated by his manager, Kate Loveridge. This gave him valuable skills for mentoring graduates and interns – something he already had an interest in. “It has been great supporting them how to think in a different way, outside the box, rather than always going for the conventional solution”, he says.
Brayden McMaster Z People – Emerging Leader
Isaac Construction
Brayden’s leadership style is to provide clarity around the ‘what’, but in the context of giving his people the flexibility to determine the ‘how’. He establishes a clear vision or goal of what he wants to achieve and then shares it with the rest of his team. His manager, Quintin Rolston, notes Brayden has said to him, “I’ve found people are much happier when they are able to determine their own pathway for achieving goals. it gives them a much better sense of purpose and ownership, and it usually ends in better results.”. This combination of genuine caring for his people, desire for them to be high performers, and to hold them accountable to high standards (his and their own) is what makes Brayden a worthy contender for this award.
Amy O'Donnell Z People – Emerging Leader
HEB Construction
Amy has been nominated for this award on the back of the work she has done on NCI, noticing a core design issue and taking on the responsibility to collaboratively find a solution while simultaneously leading her site team to deliver the construction works. Her passion to find and implement this solution saw her inspire a team of disparate people across the project, and led to this nomination. Her enthusiasm and determination to find solutions motivates her, and her team are happy to join her for the ride. She shares her knowledge and experience with those around her and talks openly about her mistakes and lessons learnt. She upskills and empowers her team to improve their skills by promoting constant learning and challenging themselves.
Shaun Hewald Z People – Emerging Leader
Inframax Construction
Shaun motivates his peers by leading by example. Shaun’s team knows he has their back, he is a supportive manager who works with the team to plan, consult and consider the best approach for all aspects of the maintenance programme. When it comes down to the need for completion, it is all hands on deck, no job is too small for Shaun to jump in when required, it is about supporting the team to ensure they have the right tools and resources to complete a high quality job. Leading by example is the best definition of Shaun’s approach. Shaun takes a leadership role in developing talent, ensuring his team has the right levels of formal and informal training. He enjoys being on the front line with his team where he can hear and experience first hand the challenges they face and collaboratively work on solutions.
Fabian Bracken Z People – Emerging Leader WINNER
Connell Contractors
Fabian has been nominated for this award because he is a genuine leader of people. We have had the good fortune of knowing and working with Fabian for 5 years and he belies his 29 years of age. His ability to absorb information and translate this to his peers in a clear and concise manner was apparent in his early twenties. He certainly epitomizes the phrase "An Old head on young shoulders". Because of his practical skills and knowledge, he can lead by example and is able to train and demonstrate to his subordinates, how to carry out certain tasks safely and to a good standard. He does this with much patience and diligence. His supportive, level headed nature and appreciation, gets the best out of his peers and are his key motivational attributes.
Taine Gilling Z People – Emerging Leader
Smythe Contractors
Taine is developing his leadership style and role. He has shown the ability to think about what needs to be done and then get it started. He will then move to the next task and get underway. He considers the night before what needs to happen the next day and ensures that the materials are on site. Taine has has the support of some old boys into his team, and they will allow him to have that time to be the leader. A great supportive team. Taine is respected for his drive and enthusiasm.
Jordan McWilliam Z People – Emerging Leader
Seipp Construction
Jordan’s management style is demonstrated by the empathic leadership of someone who has risen through all roles and understands what is both expected and achievable in each. Jordan motivates his peers through communicating clear work instructions and breaking down the work scope into achievable and understandable chunks. At a recent leadership training course, “clear communication” was listed as one of the prime skills of an effective manager, and one of the main skills the attendees were hoping to improve through attendance at course. This trait, amongst others, helps motivate and empower his team. The company has nominated Jordan because he represents the embodiment of an emerging leader.
Reuben Ford Z People – Emerging Leader HIGHLY COMMENDED
Smythe Contractors
Reuben turns up every day with a happy and smiling face. He believes that a smile can make a massive difference in motivating his team. He is seen cracking jokes to lighten up the room. Before heading to the site, he discusses progress and listens to what each one wants to do. He sets targets and involves everyone to create strategies to achieve them. It makes them feel valuable and unifies them to work on a successful outcome. He helps the team members along and trains them to do things better. He involves himself in helping his team learn and strive. Reuben likes to do the job but has the patience to allow others to learn. Calmly explain a process or the day's target. This is different from the old days of doing this or doing that, then standing by for further instructions.
Renata Pomana Z People – Emerging Leader
JT Contractors
Renata, more commonly known as Ren, has been in the Civil Road Construction Industry for 7 years. In this time he has taken every opportunity to learn as he navigates his way through the industry. He is open minded to new challenges, and willing to learn and upskill himself to be successful in the Civil industry. Ren has been nominated because he represents, leadership, empathy, work ethic, amazing communication, reliability, he's trustworthy, honest, approachable, calm, uses initiative, respectful, a great team leader and a team player. Ren is a humble achiever who never brags about his achievements. He is trusted and respected by all his peers & managers at JT Contractors. In 2021 Ren bought his own 6 wheel tipper truck, which has created another income stream for himself and us at JT Contractors.
Emily Doyle Z People – Emerging Leader
Fulton Hogan
My leadership style reflects the work I do, the teams I work with, the leaders I’ve encountered working at Fulton Hogan and my personality as a whole. It’s a verbal and casual style that continues to evolve as I learn more skills and gain additional experience and confidence. I’m very aware that many of the team I lead are doing jobs that I still need to learn myself – hence I have a very open approach and know I’m gaining more from the team then they are probably learning from me. This continual cycle of learning sees me actively onsite and involved in the ground work. The hands on learning is incredibly important for my development, but also to gain the respect of the team and show them I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. The leaders I admire have done this and learnt from the ground up. I know there’s still so much to learn that you can’t learn in the classroom and I’m extremely open to this.
