Collaboration, impact, innovation and value will take centre stage at the 2026 ACE Awards Gala this week in Auckland where we celebrate the engineering consultancies and individuals who are shaping better outcomes for clients and communities across Aotearoa. We asked Andrea Rickard, Beca Managing Director – New Zealand, why Beca chose to support the ACE Awards Gala.
Why did Beca choose to sponsor the 2026 ACE Awards Gala, and what makes this celebration of the consulting and engineering sector in Aotearoa New Zealand worth supporting?
We’re a profession that tends to get on with the job. We solve difficult problems, manage risk and uncertainty, and then move fairly quickly onto the next one.
So I think there’s real value in occasionally stopping and saying: that was excellent, and it mattered.
And perhaps that matters more now than it has for a while. We’re living through some pretty significant structural change, in our economy, our climate, technology, energy and the way our communities work. The problems are becoming more interconnected, not less.
In that sort of world, science, engineering and good advice really matter. We need people who can make sense of complexity, bring evidence and judgement to difficult decisions, and turn ideas into things that actually work.
That’s why Beca supports the ACE Awards. It’s a chance to celebrate the very best of our profession, but also to remind ourselves why the profession itself matters.
Beyond the gala and the trophies awarded, where do you see the greatest value of the ACE Awards for our people and sector?
For me, the real value is making excellent work visible.
The ACE Awards give us a chance to see what other people across the profession are doing, the difficult problems they’re tackling, the ideas they’ve tried, and what genuinely good work looks like.
And that lifts all of us. You see something another team has done and think, “That’s clever. We could learn from that.”
That is particularly important at a time when the challenges we’re being asked to solve are changing quickly.
Excellence doesn’t spread because someone wins a trophy. It spreads because people see good examples, learn, and raise their own game.
What are you looking forward to about the ACE Awards Gala?
Honestly, I’m looking forward to hearing the stories.
There’s a lot happening in our industry that is genuinely clever, important and sometimes quite brave, but much of it happens quietly in project teams and doesn’t get talked about much outside them.
So it’s good to have a night where we step back, hear what others have been working on, celebrate some exceptional people and projects, and probably steal a few good ideas from each other.
And it’s also just nice to celebrate our profession for an evening rather than immediately moving on to the next problem.
ACE members deeply appreciate Beca’s support of the gala. What message do you hope your sponsorship sends to those being celebrated – and to future generations?
I’d like it to send a pretty simple message: this profession matters. And it is definitely hard work!
We’re heading into a period where New Zealand, like the rest of the world, is going to have to make some big choices about infrastructure, energy, resilience, technology, climate and how we invest scarce resources.
Those choices need science, engineering, evidence and good judgement behind them.
Our profession has an important role in that, not because we have all the answers, but because we’re trained to work with complexity, understand trade-offs and turn difficult problems into practical solutions.
So celebrating excellence isn’t just about recognising what has already been achieved. It’s also about showing the next generation that this is a profession where you can work on things that genuinely matter.
See you at the 2026 ACE Awards Gala, sponsored by Beca
5 NOVEMBER // Shed 10, Auckland // 5.30pm