The Āpōpō Professional Practice Accreditation programme is now accepting applications, with our first applicant for Asset Management Associate (AMA) now accepted.
Get to know James Lear – Consultant – Infrastructure Advisory at Pattle Delamore Partners Ltd.
We recently asked James a couple of questions about his role and what it means to be Āpōpō’s first Asset Management Associate.
What is your role at PDP and how long have you been there?
I am a consultant in the growing infrastructure advisory team at PDP and have been with PDP for nearly 3 years.
What do you love most about your role? What’s inspiring you at the moment?
What I love most about my role is that I never get bored! Every day is at least a little bit different, and I get to work creatively to solve complex challenges.
You are the first person to became an Asset Management Associate – congratulations! What does that mean for you and your future as an asset manager?
To me, becoming an Asset Management Associate holds significance in two ways. Firstly, it’s awesome to become part of a community of likeminded professionals, I attended the Āpōpō Congress for the first time this year, and everyone was so incredibly welcoming to a newcomer, so it’s great to become more entrenched in Āpōpō.
Secondly, it’s great to have a defined professional development structure to work towards. Even undertaking the assessment was beneficial for me to work out the areas of asset management I am most interested in as well as the areas I need to work on to improve.
Tell us something about your professional development journey – what have you done, what are you working on, what have you got planned?
I would say I have had a somewhat unconventional journey so far. Starting out as an Environmental Scientist, I landed in asset management by happenstance, falling in love with its strategic thinking and systems complexity. I launched into several projects before any kind of formal training, but I have recently begun backfilling my knowledge with some of the Āpōpō digital badges. I have just finished AM304 – Asset Management Strategy.
Looking forward, I hope to pursue some more formal training, likely a Postgraduate Diploma in Infrastructure Asset Management. Hopefully this will put me in good stead to work my way toward becoming an Āpōpō Asset Management Chartered Professional.
Thinking bigger picture – what is your vision for Aotearoa’s asset management in the future?
I hope to see two trends emerge in asset management over the next twenty years in Aotearoa. We are living in an increasingly connected world, and I hope to see that connectivity reflected in the way we manage our infrastructure assets, both in the ways we collaborate with one another and in the ways, we gather and use data. While only one part of the puzzle, I think that it is inevitable digital twins will become common place in asset management and will be key to improving not only management of infrastructure, but also for building system resilience and as tools for communicating complexity to our communities.
I also hope to see nature become a fully integrated part of asset management. Aotearoa is uniquely positioned to lead in this area, by emphasising a holistic worldview, Te ao Māori. I hope to see nature recognised as a critical and integrated component of our infrastructure, widespread recognition for the value of ecosystem services, and nature incorporated into our asset management planning.
James presenting at an Āpōpō Branch Event in Auckland, 2023.