Matt Harris
Company: Babbage Consultants
Job title: Associate Principal – South Island Business Manager
Matt Harris
About Matt
I've been fortunate to work in senior leadership roles with regards to performance, culture, strategy and delivery.
Whakapapa pepeha
I descend from the United Kingdom but have lived in New Zealand for 23 years. I live in Christchurch Ōtautahi which is now home to my family and me. I look forward to the opportunity to serve on the ACE New Zealand board.
I heke mai au i te UK engari kua 23 tau au e noho ana ki NZ. Kei Christchurch Ōtautahi ahau e noho ana kei konei taku whanau me ahau. Kei te tumanako ahau ki te whai waahi ki te mahi i te poari ACE NZ.
Strategic vision
ACE New Zealand is in a unique position to lead the New Zealand engineering and consultancy industry in development, leadership and best practice training; for what it means to be a New Zealand engineering consultant.
Engineering New Zealand covers the technical side of engineering well; but ACE can teach our young grads, our new directors or even our seasoned professionals on what it means to be a great consultant, as opposed to just an engineer.
By this, I mean that ACE New Zealand is well-positioned to provide industry support in representation at government policy level, in best practice contracts and procurement, but also industry training in being a director of a consultancy, managing risk, managing a consultancy firm and developing an individual’s soft ‘consultancy’ skills.
I’d like to see ACE New Zealand re-invigorated in this role and be seen as the go-to networking and support organisation for aspiring consultancy firms and existing firms alike.
Strengths
I lead the management and growth of the Babbage business across the South Island of New Zealand, overseeing project delivery and key stakeholder management.
As an internationally experienced chartered professional engineer and strategic leader with director and governance experience, I am constantly working on empowering our teams to successfully deliver multi-discipline engineering and environmental projects; utilising my experience in professional consultancy management, project delivery, structural/earthquake engineering and sustainable (smart city) urban infrastructure planning and engineering development.
I have a career of 25yrs+, delivering projects in the land development, construction, and smart city sectors. Working within senior management teams, I provide a focus on effective communication, engagement and empowerment to develop and establish strategic plans. Our success at Babbage is based on continuous improvement and the development of winning workplace cultures; leading to team growth, increased institutional knowledge; and successfully building some awesome projects!
I particularly enjoy working with teams to bring out the best in them, to celebrate our successes in project design and delivery and to underpin engaged workplace cultures based on positive continual improvement at all levels. It involves ensuring effective P&L control, making some tough or stretch decisions, whilst setting clear targets for the vision to be established/understood and achieved, all the time underpinning and promoting a positive company culture.
Enjoying seeing ongoing improvement and success across organisations I can bring ACE New Zealand my enthusiasm, energy and readiness to challenge existing systems, so that positive decisions can be made for the ongoing development of ACE New Zealand, for the benefit of the New Zealand engineering and consultancy industry.
What does diversity and inclusion mean to you?
I am a supporter of recent initiatives such as The Diversity Agenda, but realise that diversity and inclusion goes much further than the initial goals of that initiative. For organisations looking to develop their diversity and inclusion programs and policies, the change can not only be challenging but if done correctly, rewarding.
Most companies will enact change to deliver business value, and many may do so knowing that research shows that companies with more diverse teams outperform those with a more homogeneous workforce.
But results aside, to me diversity and inclusion go deeper than that, underpinning what a target ‘culture’ a company might set; in order to future proof the company to develop the best in its teams, for hiring the best people and modernising work practices to provide flexible, understanding and supportive work environments so all can be supported to perform at their best.
It will feed directly into a strong supportive work culture, with empathetic, empowered and inclusive leadership. If all staff members, top-down, are encouraged by a strong culture to live developed diversity and inclusivity policies then the company can expect to attract a wider range of diversity, celebrate that inclusivity and enjoy much better outcomes all-round.