Steve Abley

Steve leads our organisation and oversees both technical and management leadership.

He makes sure our organisation makes solid promises to our clients in terms of performance and client satisfaction. He also ensures our stakeholders know what our organisation stands for and what motivates us to succeed. Steve ultimately makes sure that the promises we make, we deliver on.

About Steve

Steve has a long history of creating value. He has strived to create an organisation that differentiates itself in the marketplace and those within the organisation as unique problem solvers.

Steve’s career route is atypical for the leader of a successful professional services firm. He entered the workforce in 1988 without any tertiary education and through hard toil gained through practical experience and extra mural study, gained an engineering technology qualification from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. He ultimately believed that to create the career he desired he needed further knowledge and gained an Honours Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Canterbury.

Over his career he has worked for both consultants and constructors in New Zealand and the United Kingdom and undertaken a wide range of projects including research, planning, consenting, design and delivery. Through his own interests he has often involved technology within a particular solution to deliver added value.

This solution focused approach has meant he was one of the youngest people to be recognised at the leading edge of his profession. He was made a Fellow of Engineering New Zealand in 2011 and received the MacLean Citation in 2015 for distinguished service. He is one of only a few Development Contribution Commissioners appointed by the Ministry for the Environment with continuous service from 2014 to today.

Steve doesn’t consider creating value only takes place at work. He tries to create value in all his dealings including continually extending his knowledge inside and outside work.

As an example, Steve recently learnt to sail and has since completed various blue water ocean trips including Fiji to New Zealand twice, on both a monohull and catamaran. He has also competed in the Sydney to Hobart Ocean Race, and crewed aboard an expedition vessel undertaking a botanical survey of the subantarctic Auckland Islands. Steve enjoys trying something new and is currently working towards his private pilot’s licence.