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Natalie O’Brien AM is Chief Executive of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC).

On the eve of the AMW exhibition at MCEC, she spoke with AMT Editor Paul Hellard.

Ms O’Brien joined MCEC in January 2023 and has brought a wealth of leadership experience in the tourism and events industry. She is a former CEO of Food and Wine Victoria, producers of Australia’s internationally acclaimed Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. Most recently she has managed her own strategy consultancy, while operating as a CEO for Wine Victoria, and previously interim CEO for Ballarat Regional Tourism, where she led the co-design of Visitor Economy Recovery Plans.

AMT: Your work history speaks of a deep knowledge and passion for public events. Tell me about the direction and drive that has kept with you in this sector.

Natalie O’Brien: It's only when you’re older, and reflect back on your career you ask yourself where did my passion come from? My passion is absolutely people and connecting with people. There’s so much energy for people to participate and collaborate in the community in Melbourne. I think my career in events, tourism and hospitality stems from being from four generations of hoteliers. My grandmother was an incredibly vivid role model in how to truly take care of people. From a young age, I worked in hospitality, then in tourism following an extended period at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, a time for me to learn about that industry in Australia which was growing at a rapid rate.

This was an incredible opportunity to ride the wave of growing food and wine events in Victoria. The events industry is full of very passionate people. I think that the diversity of events presently throws a spotlight on so many issues the public are thoroughly passionate about. This could be the environment, energy, business, or manufacturing. Music, or just fantastic food and wine. An event requires so many disciplines to work. Whether it’s logistics, HR, chef gardening talent or audio-visual expertise, it's extraordinary. I’m constantly amazed at the talent of people, particularly in Melbourne, who have the skills to not just to dream up events, but then implement and deliver them.

AMT: Give us an idea of what goes on behind the scenes, for the venue specifically, to stage such a big show like AMW2023?

NO: You can imagine an event to the scale of AMW2023, requires a lot of planning and coordination behind the scenes. One of the benefits of hosting an event at MCEC is that we have a dedicated event planner and technology planner assigned to look after clients from the beginning. Every client also has an event delivery manager who is their go-to person on event day.

We act as the conduit between them, their contractors and all our internal teams with the ultimate objective to understand our client’s vision and bring it to life. Planning an event can start more than a year in advance – in the case of AMW2023, we started planning seven to eight months prior to the event.

Every event is unique with expectations that can often range from simple to very technical. It’s our role to work with our clients to problem-solve and troubleshoot to ensure their event is safe, seamless, and all their guests have a wonderful experience at MCEC.

AMT: In January, you landed in the CEO position at MCEC, the major conference and exhibition venue in Melbourne. The venue has a full slate, for the next couple of years, because you are dealing with the re-emergence of businesses pushing to get out and exhibit their products and services.

NO: I am in the first couple of months, this is week nine for me. I am still learning from key stakeholders, customers and everyone in our team. There’s the opportunity to meet customers in the middle of their events on site, and our key stakeholders as well. I’ve tried to get to every corner of this building. Of course, the size and scope of the job together with the expanse of the venue was very overwhelming on my first day.

But there’s that opportunity to meet all of the employees, the pastry team, the uniform team, security, to our team in the event technology department. I try to physically walk the floor every morning to meet a whole raft of people who are working hard to deliver an exceptional experience for our customers. We are starting to prioritise many elements in this new operating environment. What does it look like for us going forward? We're looking at how new technology plays a role in supporting our back-of-house systems and overall business efficiencies during big events. We’re also looking into what some of the digital and AI opportunities are that can enhance the customer experience, and also support the hybrid event model, if required. Other things we’re focusing on are our skills and cultivating the diverse workforce we have. Making sure we are creating an environment, of continuous learning. In January, MCEC held a lot of master classes to lift technical expertise to rebuild the capability we lost to other sectors during the lockdowns.

It's a huge privilege to work in an industry and a sector that I absolutely love. I come into work every day and it's my team and then our visitors and customers we get to welcome every day.

I get huge motivation and inspiration from my team, whether it's Mark and Cheryl in uniforms or our hard working team in logistics. Face to face events are back and there’s that buzz of people talking about their sector or their industry. What an incredible role that I get to work with people on my team and then welcome people. All of this in an incredible location along the Yarra River in Melbourne. We’re also looking in terms of our future planning of events. What the long-term legacy events might leave for cities and regions. We had a conference here a couple of weeks ago where some customers are looking at what the event might deliver, in terms of long-term legacy to the local community. We know MCEC brings in visitors to Melbourne, and there’s a very good legacy of connecting people to the other experiences of the State, procuring local wines from Victoria and the very best food. The next extension is that conferences that may be dealing with important issues connect with the local community on such issues whether it's gender equality or sustainability, how do we make those connections with the community here as well?

We had a Pathology conference, a Pokemon event and a Toy Fair here the other week. The diversity of the topics and ideas and exchange is invigorating. In all of the nooks and crannies of this building, people are planning, connecting, generating ideas, solutions and trade. That energy is what we really want to continue to build on. And so I look forward to learning more about manufacturing when AMW2023 comes in 9th to 12th May.

I’m very much looking forward to welcoming the AMW 2023 event this year in Melbourne, back after four years.

AMT: Peter King was CEO before you for some eleven years. He left quite a legacy.

NO: Peter King had such an incredible tenure and brought together a really important community of partners. We have the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal coming up which Peter was quite instrumental in supporting. Peter's contribution was also to the ongoing drive for industry sustainability and the environment and MCEC really pushed out front many years ago. And Peter is continuing that with incredible stakeholder relationships both here in Australia amongst the team, and then all of the global organisations that he was a part of during his tenure as well.

I am only the third CEO of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. I look forward to welcoming you when you come. We've some exciting plans to explore technology and sustainability. And it feels like people have realized that connecting face-to-face is a hugely important part of our DNA. And the fact that we can do it again, I think is very exciting.

Engineers Australia is the peak body for the engineering profession in Australia. The organisation has over 115,000 individual members and acts as the voice of the profession. Prior to this position, Romilly was Chief Executive Officer of Infrastructure Australia, a Federal Government Agency which provides research and advice to government, industry and the community on infrastructure investments and reforms.

AMT: You’ve started as CEO at Engineers Australia with a strong direction. What do you see you’ve brought to the position in reflection on your prior appointments?

Romilly Madew: Way back before I started at Engineers Australia, I was at the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), which I started working at in 2005, and then took over as CEO in 2006. The GBCA created a rating tool for buildings and communities called Green Star. Each of the categories within the tool had a technical committee and the majority of those technical committee members were engineers. So my engagement with, and reliance on engineers really started back in those early days. Then I moved to Infrastructure Australia (IA) as CEO in 2019. IA is the Federal Government's independent infrastructure advisor. If you think of all our infrastructure projects, and there's so many in Australia, Infrastructure Australia considered both economic and social infrastructure, covering water, transport, energy, telecommunications, education, healthcare. Every single infrastructure project was reliant on an engineer for design, construction and operations in all its shapes and forms.

Secondly, I had come from an industry membership based background. I had previously worked at the Property Council of Australia then the Green Building Council of Australia, so I'd already come from a membership-based background. There were so many alignments with the work that I've done over the last 20 years to the work that I'm now doing at Engineers Australia.

AMT: So, are we going in the right direction?

RM: Across sustainainability, in pockets, we are, yes. In property and construction, we are very much moving in the right direction. There are a number of global benchmarks, which Australia has been leading for over 14 years. When you consider our office buildings, shopping centres, apartment buildings, and large residential communities, even our large-scale education facilities like universities. New South Wales healthcare and schools’ infrastructure, is world-leading. Of course, when you consider infrastructure, such as road, rail and ports, we see emerging levels of leadership.

AMT: Where do you see the focus of Engineers Australia in the rapidly changing economy, climate and workforce conditions shaking the world right now.

RM: With the incoming Federal Government and the introduction to changes to climate change requirements, there will be an increased focus in responding to climate change. And the difference really is the asset class. When you consider property and construction, many listed property trusts are involved. They have shareholders saying they're really not going to invest in properties that don't have a sustainability strategy. It's called a Green Dividend. However, when considering infrastructure, much of it is owned and built by government. There is a disconnect there. All the states and territories have agreed to Net Zero by 2050, however, there’s been inconsistencies in how that’s been executed through state government procurement. It's all well and good that our leaders say, yes, sign up to Net Zero by 2050, however you need to see public servants acknowledging and implementing strategies to meet these targets. It needs to be embeded into the procurement of multi-million or multi-billion dollar infrastructure assets. With the change in Federal Government last year it's been embedded within Infrastructure Australia's legislation, for instance. All the states and territories are aligned with the Federal Government for a lot of their funding. And that’ll start filtering and cascading through. But infrastructure is very much following the path of property and construction.

Another priority for Engineers Australia is working with industry, government and educators to address the nation’s engineering skills shortage. Our economy and society are more reliant on the engineering profession than ever before. We need to ensure we have the engineers necessary to deliver on current government priorities and conceptualise the solutions needed to solve our society’s most complex problems.

Our research shows that for decades, this issue keeps cropping up: there is a systemic shortage of engineers in Australia.

AMT: Can you talk about the challenges behind sustainability in engineering?

RM: It all comes down to planning. In our policy and advocacy work we are very clear on what we see as issues holding Australia back and causing problems which have now come to the fore. In flood prone areas, we need to be very clear, with infrastructure, we have positions on project governance and planning. I mentioned project governance before in that we do believe government can improve, for instance, best practice procurement. It's not just sustainability and climate change. We need to have project teams engaged with the First Nations people about what they know about the area? Have they taken on board previous major events to make sure that they're planning for the right place.

Considering Lismore as an example. We need to be able to be bold in having the conversation with the community on what should be rebuilt and what should be rebuilt somewhere else. Within the area, but with an appropriate caveat. And there are so many case studies on this. This has happened elsewhere, both in Australia and overseas. So if you look at Christchurch, they have a colour code system on where you can, you can rebuild in Christchurch after the earthquake. Governments, councils and others shouldn't be afraid to have those conversations, because they can be backed up by science, and engineers on the ground.

AMT: What do you see as the largest part of your job as CEO of Engineering Australia?

RM: It's multifaceted and involves team leadership, governance, senior office bearer, member and skakeholder management, policy and public speaking.

We have over 115,000 members of Engineers Australia. And we need to harness the skills and expertise of our members. If we think about the infrastructure stimulus build and the energy transition, for instance. That means making sure that the engineers who gained their degree 10 years ago, can tap into the right courses and micro credentials and have opportunities in place so they can upskill.

There should be opportunities for them to pivot to those growing areas. Engineers are required for all these new areas. We still need chemical, civil and mechanical engineers, but making sure they're getting the skills they can be trained in robotics, green or blue engineering, AI, hydrogen energy. So the big thing for us is unlocking the untapped potential of our membership. And helping them to adapt and stay relevant.

Also, we need more engineers. We all know at Engineers Australia; we have an untapped potential in Australia. We have young girls at school who we want learning maths and physics. We want to make sure that engineering is an attractive career opportunity for them, and that they can see the potential across all the different facets of engineering.

But there are a number of challenges. One is that we are not getting the teachers in STEM subjects. The number of teachers with qualifications to lift students into the STEM is falling. Secondly, we know that for 90% of girls, engineering is not on their radar. So that means we need to make sure the parents, teachers and the career advisors understand and they see the role models and potential of engineering. And then thirdly, we need to ensure that the girls are studying maths and physics. They don't have to be brilliant at it. They just need to study it.

AMT: How crucial is it for engineers to continue learning. Adapting. To pivot. And to stay relevant?

RM: Engineers are natural problem solvers, often referred to as forever learners. And as a professional body as opposed to an industry body, Engineers Australia is there to ensure the integrity of the engineering professional on their credentials, their training, their certification, the credentialing of the university courses, the migrant skills assessments, and the setting of benchmarks of our expectations of engineers and ensuring we do those assessments annually. This is to ensure people have respect and faith in our different levels of engineering including our chartered engineering, like a chartered accountant. Also with the professional body, it's an actual requirement in many cases that a project must be signed off by chartered engineering.

Our role in a rebuild after a disaster like the floods we’ve had along the NSW coast, and many, many other areas along the Murray and up in the Kimberley for instance, we should be able to support those engineers in the different colleges as well as our technical societies like the Infrastructure Public Works Engineering Association and specialist humanitarian response agency RedR Australia which we co-founded. We should be like the SES. We do have the ability to do this, but we need to be better. As soon as there’s an incident like the floods, you get all the Emergency Services backing each other in, but in many cases like that, you do actually need engineers. Is this structurally sound? Can we use it?

AMT: What is the best part of your job?

RM: Engaging, working and collaborating with five generations of engineers, from all facets of the engineering profession. Whether they're a professional or a technologist or an associate, they're passionate about their projects. You'll find that with engineers, it's an actual life passion for them. They want to make a difference and they want to have an impact. They want to help build a better life and surroundings for people. engineersaustralia.org.au new.gbca.org.au/about/what-green-building/