James Sutherland
Executive Advisor
- Melbourne, Victoria
- james.sutherland@infragroup.com.au
James is a highly experienced commercial, transaction and procurement specialist with over 20 years' experience leading and managing the contractual and commercial functions of the procurement and delivery phases of major infrastructure projects. During his career he has applied his commercial, technical, leadership and analytical acumen and skills to oversee the transaction of all construction packages across the Metro Tunnel, Regional Rail Revival and Melbourne Airport Rail projects. This experience has provided him with extensive insights and knowledge in the planning, development, market interaction, tendering, evaluation, governance and construction aspects of delivering mega projects, to a current value in excess of $30b of packages under contract or procurement, including across managing contractor, design & construct, alliance, incentivised target cost and public private partnership contract models.
James provides clients with market leading expertise in:
Mega projects - Over fifteen years experience overseeing the transaction and procurement of numerous multi-billion projects and programs, consisting of concurrent packages of varied values and contract models, including managing numerous multidisciplinary teams.
Commercial solutions - Analysing complex commercial issues and challenges to develop customised solutions and initiatives across all forms of contractual engagements from large scale construction and infrastructure projects through to transactional goods and services procurement.
Innovation - Providing innovative and adaptive analysis to develop practical and bespoke solutions and approaches, drawing on extensive experience in developing and implementing transaction, commercial and procurement outcomes across large scale, complex projects and initiatives.
Transaction - Developing and implementing tailored transaction processes, documentation and evaluation solutions, including operational and strategic goods and services procurements, to optimise outcomes the project owner and market participants.
Government policy - Establishing and implementing government policies to optimise social and sustainable benefits derived during project delivery, including gender equality outcomes, industry development and training, social enterprises, Aboriginal employment and procurement, local content and fair work practices.
Full project lifecycle – Extensive experience in all commercial aspects across the entire project lifecycle from business case development and approval, market engagement, transaction, delivery, commissioning and close out, including developing, managing and administering complex governance and approval processes.
The $10-12b Melbourne Airport Rail project comprised of seven large scale packages utilising a range of standard and complex alliance, managing contractor and incentivised target cost contract models. James's role with Rail Projects Victoria oversaw multiple multidisciplinary teams, comprised of internal personnel with commercial, legal and technical advisors, across all concurrent tender processes. This included leading the market engagement, pre-qualification, expression of interest, request for proposal, evaluation and contract award phases of the project. In addition, James also oversaw the strategic and transactional goods and services procurement function which procured over $5b in contract engagements to support Melbourne Airport Rail and Rail Projects Victoria's broader portfolio of projects. During his time at Rail Projects Victoria, he was also the organisation's lead for probity and the development and implementation of state and federal policies and requirements.
The $12b+ Melbourne Metro Rail project is currently the largest ever rail project in delivery in Victoria and is comprised of two nine kilometer long tunnels and five new underground stations through Melbourne's central business district. Having been onboard from the beginning of the project in 2014, James was initially involved in the development of the key commercial, procurement and packaging components of the project business case prior to progressing to leading the transaction function across all four major construction packages including the early works managing contractor, two rail systems and rail infrastructure alliances and the tunnel and stations public private partnership package.
The $4.3b Regional Rail Link project constructed 50km of new rail through Melbourne's western suburbs to separate the regional and metropolitan rail services to enable a significant capacity uplift for both services. James was the commercial lead overseeing the procurement and delivery of the two design and construct packages worth a combined value of approximately $700m. His role included working across the commercial, legal and technical functions to develop all market engagement, expression of interest and tender documentation and processes. During the delivery phase of the project, James led the development of an innovative commercial incentive regime into the existing design and construct contract to facilitate an earlier completion date for the project and a more collaborative engagement with the contractor.