Bringing te ao Māori to client projects
In 2006, when Wharehuia Dixon (Ngāti Awa) joined Beca as a graduate civil engineer, the company didn’t have a strong connection to te ao Māori. He was one of a handful of Māori within one of Asia Pacific’s largest independent advisory, design and engineering consultancies. Wharehuia says the industry can be a lonely place for Māori and Pacific engineers, and notes that many young Māori and Pacific children grow up having no idea what engineering means.
Fast forward to 2024 and the environment is changing. Beca’s New Zealand cultural origins have become much clearer within the last seven years, following a challenge to the company to better reflect its roots as a business founded in Aotearoa by Wharehuia, Genevieve Doube (Ngāi Tahu) and John Blyth (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi). This challenge led to the inception of Te Ahi Tūtata in 2022 (Beca’s Māori business team) and a role within the company for Wharehuia that is grounded in te ao Māori.
The government’s 100-day plan – a mixed bag
The implications are numerous for the professional consulting industry in the coalition government’s 100-day plan (the plan) released in December 2023. Harrison Grierson’s Executive Director and National Land Development Manager Campbell McGregor looks at how the plan will affect the professional consulting industry and what the next three years could look like for Aotearoa.
Campbell says the government’s self-proclaimed “ambitious” plan will have a real impact on the professional consulting sector and its partners, and believes there’s a lot to be excited about and achieve.