Tonkin + Taylor Chief Executive Dr Penny Kneebone is the newest member of the Project Alliance Board (PAB) – the governance function of the LEAD Alliance which is made up representatives from all the alliance participants.
Penny is an environmental scientist with a PhD in Environmental Engineering Science. She studied and worked as an environmental consultant in the United States for 10 years, before returning to New Zealand and T+T in 2006.
We caught up with her to find out about the unique perspective she brings to her governance and leadership roles.
I’ve been CE of T+T NZ for the past two years. My role involves developing the strategy for our consulting business in New Zealand and leading its implementation, as well as keeping my hand in with some technical reviews - although there’s less of that these days and I miss it!
The role is a privilege. T+T is a great crew of people doing awesome things. We care about our work and each other. Being an employee-owned company sets us up well to work within an alliance culture - we’re collegial and operate on an ‘everyone matters’ basis. What this means in practice is that we try to listen more than we talk, and have genuine recognition that you get much better outcomes when there are a range of perspectives being listened to in the room.
Yes. I am glad to be part of a move towards better equality in our industry.
Last week, I attended the Diversity Agenda Accord summit. It’s a cross-industry initiative of professional services organisations in engineering and architecture committed to making our sectors more inclusive and better places to work. It’s in its sixth year and has helped lead positive change in our industry, and I’m very proud that T&T is part of it.
The Auckland civil design and construction alliance is inspiring. I’m very excited about the step change in large-scale housing provision it’s enabling and it is shifting how industry operates too, moving towards more wholesale collaboration. I was a wee bit involved in bidding for the project, and then as a people manager supporting our team to deliver their best work on the Alliance, so it is neat to be involved now in this way.
There has been a lot of good change at the Alliance. I’m glad to be contributing to maintaining that and making sure that T+T is doing everything we can to support continuous improvement in the best possible way. I’m proud to help our people feel proud of the work they are doing in the Alliance.
At T+T, our most significant asset is our people’s thinking. I am alert to what people need to feel comfortable to do their best possible clear, collaborative thinking and operate in a space where they can say what they see.
Projects of scale and complexity like this can bring out the best in people. I’m keen to help enable that via my board role.
I had planned to do a law and science degree, but once I’d completed the science part at Otago, I was ready for a change. A bit last minute, I accepted a place to study Environmental Engineering Science at Caltech in the US. This was before environmental engineering was really taught as a standalone subject. It was an exciting time with all sorts of specialists bouncing off each other. After a few years of interesting water quality research and a bunch more years working as an environmental consultant in the US, I returned to NZ and joined T+T.
There are many, but on Fridays I throw together an all-staff email sharing client delivery and professional excellence highlights. It is a great high to end the week, sharing the ways we have made a difference to our customers, our industry, our communities, and our environment.
Tricky, but probably it is the Coromandel – maybe something to do with not being able to get there so easily at the moment! I probably took its natural beauty for granted growing up, and living in the States for a long time made me really appreciate what we have on our doorstep.
Tonkin + Taylor Chief Executive Dr Penny Kneebone is the newest member of the Project Alliance Board (PAB) – the governance function of the LEAD Alliance which is made up representatives from all the alliance participants.
Penny is an environmental scientist with a PhD in Environmental Engineering Science. She studied and worked as an environmental consultant in the United States for 10 years, before returning to New Zealand and T+T in 2006.
We caught up with her to find out about the unique perspective she brings to her governance and leadership roles.
I’ve been CE of T+T NZ for the past two years. My role involves developing the strategy for our consulting business in New Zealand and leading its implementation, as well as keeping my hand in with some technical reviews - although there’s less of that these days and I miss it!
The role is a privilege. T+T is a great crew of people doing awesome things. We care about our work and each other. Being an employee-owned company sets us up well to work within an alliance culture - we’re collegial and operate on an ‘everyone matters’ basis. What this means in practice is that we try to listen more than we talk, and have genuine recognition that you get much better outcomes when there are a range of perspectives being listened to in the room.
Yes. I am glad to be part of a move towards better equality in our industry.
Last week, I attended the Diversity Agenda Accord summit. It’s a cross-industry initiative of professional services organisations in engineering and architecture committed to making our sectors more inclusive and better places to work. It’s in its sixth year and has helped lead positive change in our industry, and I’m very proud that T&T is part of it.
The Auckland civil design and construction alliance is inspiring. I’m very excited about the step change in large-scale housing provision it’s enabling and it is shifting how industry operates too, moving towards more wholesale collaboration. I was a wee bit involved in bidding for the project, and then as a people manager supporting our team to deliver their best work on the Alliance, so it is neat to be involved now in this way.
There has been a lot of good change at the Alliance. I’m glad to be contributing to maintaining that and making sure that T+T is doing everything we can to support continuous improvement in the best possible way. I’m proud to help our people feel proud of the work they are doing in the Alliance.
At T+T, our most significant asset is our people’s thinking. I am alert to what people need to feel comfortable to do their best possible clear, collaborative thinking and operate in a space where they can say what they see.
Projects of scale and complexity like this can bring out the best in people. I’m keen to help enable that via my board role.
I had planned to do a law and science degree, but once I’d completed the science part at Otago, I was ready for a change. A bit last minute, I accepted a place to study Environmental Engineering Science at Caltech in the US. This was before environmental engineering was really taught as a standalone subject. It was an exciting time with all sorts of specialists bouncing off each other. After a few years of interesting water quality research and a bunch more years working as an environmental consultant in the US, I returned to NZ and joined T+T.
There are many, but on Fridays I throw together an all-staff email sharing client delivery and professional excellence highlights. It is a great high to end the week, sharing the ways we have made a difference to our customers, our industry, our communities, and our environment.
Tricky, but probably it is the Coromandel – maybe something to do with not being able to get there so easily at the moment! I probably took its natural beauty for granted growing up, and living in the States for a long time made me really appreciate what we have on our doorstep.
Tonkin + Taylor Chief Executive Dr Penny Kneebone is the newest member of the Project Alliance Board (PAB) – the governance function of the LEAD Alliance which is made up representatives from all the alliance participants.
Penny is an environmental scientist with a PhD in Environmental Engineering Science. She studied and worked as an environmental consultant in the United States for 10 years, before returning to New Zealand and T+T in 2006.
We caught up with her to find out about the unique perspective she brings to her governance and leadership roles.
I’ve been CE of T+T NZ for the past two years. My role involves developing the strategy for our consulting business in New Zealand and leading its implementation, as well as keeping my hand in with some technical reviews - although there’s less of that these days and I miss it!
The role is a privilege. T+T is a great crew of people doing awesome things. We care about our work and each other. Being an employee-owned company sets us up well to work within an alliance culture - we’re collegial and operate on an ‘everyone matters’ basis. What this means in practice is that we try to listen more than we talk, and have genuine recognition that you get much better outcomes when there are a range of perspectives being listened to in the room.
Yes. I am glad to be part of a move towards better equality in our industry.
Last week, I attended the Diversity Agenda Accord summit. It’s a cross-industry initiative of professional services organisations in engineering and architecture committed to making our sectors more inclusive and better places to work. It’s in its sixth year and has helped lead positive change in our industry, and I’m very proud that T&T is part of it.
The Auckland civil design and construction alliance is inspiring. I’m very excited about the step change in large-scale housing provision it’s enabling and it is shifting how industry operates too, moving towards more wholesale collaboration. I was a wee bit involved in bidding for the project, and then as a people manager supporting our team to deliver their best work on the Alliance, so it is neat to be involved now in this way.
There has been a lot of good change at the Alliance. I’m glad to be contributing to maintaining that and making sure that T+T is doing everything we can to support continuous improvement in the best possible way. I’m proud to help our people feel proud of the work they are doing in the Alliance.
At T+T, our most significant asset is our people’s thinking. I am alert to what people need to feel comfortable to do their best possible clear, collaborative thinking and operate in a space where they can say what they see.
Projects of scale and complexity like this can bring out the best in people. I’m keen to help enable that via my board role.
I had planned to do a law and science degree, but once I’d completed the science part at Otago, I was ready for a change. A bit last minute, I accepted a place to study Environmental Engineering Science at Caltech in the US. This was before environmental engineering was really taught as a standalone subject. It was an exciting time with all sorts of specialists bouncing off each other. After a few years of interesting water quality research and a bunch more years working as an environmental consultant in the US, I returned to NZ and joined T+T.
There are many, but on Fridays I throw together an all-staff email sharing client delivery and professional excellence highlights. It is a great high to end the week, sharing the ways we have made a difference to our customers, our industry, our communities, and our environment.
Tricky, but probably it is the Coromandel – maybe something to do with not being able to get there so easily at the moment! I probably took its natural beauty for granted growing up, and living in the States for a long time made me really appreciate what we have on our doorstep.