committee

Chris Needham 2

Executive Committee Regional Chairman, ANZ

Chris recently joined WSP as Senior Digital Advisory Consultant. Chris’ role is to digitise engineering, technical and advisory offerings with client leaders and ensure digital ways of working are implemented for project delivery teams. He’s an advocate for better communication, data-savviness and value literacy in support of great outcomes in an ever-changing environment.

Prior to joining WSP, Chris worked for Aurecon, AECOM as a BIM Advisory leader, and prior to that, operated his own BIM consulting firm, assisting many firms in organisational change efforts, systems analysis and design, training programmes and project delivery.

He has worked on projects in Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, using his experience to develop systems and processes for numerous organisations. Chris desperately hopes to one day cease his involvement in extra-curricular activities… though hopes his BILT commitments aren’t among those.

Clay Hickling

GHD
Committee Member

Clay Hickling has been working with GHD for over a decade as an architectural and civil designer/documenter. GHD, being a multidiscipline Architecture and Engineering firm adopted Revit quite sometime ago. Clay is part of an internal development team coordinating the implementation of all the Revit flavours thru the various parts of the GHD business, his focus being Architecture. This entails training, development and technical support. Recently Clay was involved in the startup of a BIM user group called BrisBIM. With the motto of working smarter and not harder Clay enjoys sharing knowledge with others and enjoys the meeting people in the RTC community. Outside of this environment Clay spends as much time as he can on the golf course and riding the bike.

Nathan Hildebrandt

Skewed
Stream Lead

Nathan was told in his second year of Architecture school that his hand drawing was poor and that he needed to find a new way to present his ideas. He went away and taught himself ARCHICAD. Today he is considered one of the best users of ARCHICAD in the world. His philosophy is quite simple, when presented with a problem or a challenge he will find a way to overcome it and deliver an outcome that is superior to where he was before. He is skilled in learning new technologies and understanding quickly whether they can be applied in business to improve effectiveness and efficiencies of day to day operations. Nathan is highly driven and motivated to succeed. Primarily his focus is on client satisfaction. He achieves this through learning and understanding their key needs and working within budget constraints with his project team to deliver successful projects. His demonstrated achievements lead to him being offered an ownership position at Fulton Trotter Architects and the long-standing relationships he has maintained with clients with some that have lasted over 10 years. His interest in improving industry has seen him contribute through his involvement in numerous industry groups. His rare combination of technical and leadership skills have led to his role in developing an industry leading ARCHICAD template, launching an ARCHICAD user event and chair roles at BrisBIM and the ACA QLD | NT / AIA QLD BIM Taskforce. He also contributes to industry as a committee member of BILT ANZ. A testament to the level of respect he has in industry is the number of guests that have donated time to be guests on his latest BIM venture on his podcast, ‘The Digital Transition’

Ceilidh Higgins (2)

CBRE
Senior Workplace Strategist

An accomplished and skilled interior designer and architect with experience in workplace strategy, design and implementation. Ceilidh’s speciality is work – both the places we work and the way we work. Ceilidh works across workplace strategy and design, delivering workplace projects from as small as 5 people through to upwards of 1000 people.

For over 10 years she has lead remote, dispersed and part time teams implementing processes and systems to support flexible work styles.

Ceilidh is a well know speaker and writer on work, workplace and technology both in Australia and internationally. She researches, writes and speculates on the future of work – both as a place and the processes of working within the AEC industry – and the impacts of technology upon both. You can find her blog at The Midnight Lunch: Collaboration in Interior Design, Architecture and Multi disciplinary consulting at themidnightlunch.com.

Melanie Tristram

Jasmax
Principal - Digital Delivery Lead

Melanie Tristram is a Principal at Jasmax. A pioneer and knowledge-leader in BIM technology and processes, Melanie leads the Digital Delivery Team providing BIM Management and BIM Advisory services to Jasmax clients including Te Whatu Ora, Ministry of Education, Precinct Properties, AUT and University of Auckland.

Melanie is a key contributor to the 2023 NZCIC Design Guidelines and the recent Digital Guidance Suite incorporating the New Zealand BIM Handbook. She is a passionate advocate for best practice application of digital technologies and regularly speaks at international industry events, most recently the 2023 Women in BIM Conference in Sydney and Smart Cities Digital Twin Summit in Auckland.

With BIM Management becoming a prerequisite on large and complex projects to ensure all design disciplines work under shared protocols, the benefits of BIM include risk mitigation, accurate cost estimation, improved design co-ordination, and facility and space management post-completion.

Adam Sheather

Bad Monkeys
Program Manager

Our team focuses end to end solutions to provide autonomation, workflows, and systems development for projects & organisations to increase productivity, eliminate risk and develop of complex construction solutions for our Design, Construction & Operate clients. Our key focuses are Digital Engineering, Data Engineering and Software Engineering from focused on the AEC space. From billion dollar large infrastructure BIM management to facility management Autodesk forge solutions to computational or data-driven design Autonomation offers a unique global perspective to provide advanced solutions to everyday problems. As a member of bad monkeys, Autonomation can connect you to a global team of professional businesses operation across the globe no matter where you are.