Lunch with Chris Hanger, CEO, Greater Cities Commission

Wednesday, 31 May 2023

12:00 PM to 2:15 PM

Where

Business Sydney | L6, 8 Chifley Square, Sydney (Corner of Hunter St and Phillip St)

Registration

Business Sydney Members & Guests

At this exclusive corporate lunch, Chris Hanger, the Chief Executive Officer for the Greater Cities Commission outlined the GCC's strategic plans & objectives in helping to create jobs closer to where people live, opportunities to attract world-class industry and talent, and make the six cities more productive, liveable and sustainable for everyone who lives and works across the area.

After his presentation, Chris Hanger sat down to a Q&A with Professor Chris Pettit, Director of the City Futures Research Centre, UNSW, facilitated by Princess Ventura, Regional Director - NSW, Urbis.

Event Partner

Event HIGHLIGHTS

CHRIS HANGER

Chief Executive Officer, Greater Cities Commission

Chris has worked in senior executive roles within the NSW Government for 10 years and previously worked with the Commonwealth Government in international trade and investment and has also worked at one of Australia’s top-tier law firms.

Whilst working for NSW Government Chris has been responsible for leading teams designing and then delivering $16+ billion in infrastructure, regional development, economic diversification and disaster recovery programs including:

· $10+ billion regional infrastructure projects through NSW Public Works;

· $4.2 billion Snowy Hydro Legacy Fund investing into transformative infrastructure across regional NSW;

· $3.3 billion Regional Growth Fund that is delivering over 2,700 economic and community projects across regional NSW;

· $2+ billion in disaster clean-up and economic and community recovery programs following the NSW 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires and 2021/22 storms and floods;

· Overseeing NSW’s COVID Hotel Quarantine security program and designing and delivering NSW COVID regional economic stimulus packages.

SCIENTIA PROFESSOR GEORGE WILLIAMS AO

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of New South Wales

George Williams AO is a senior leader in higher education, a leading constitutional law scholar, an experienced legal professional and advisor to government and industry, and a national thought leader. He is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the Anthony Mason Professor and a Scientia Professor at UNSW. His books include Australian Constitutional Law and Theory and Human Rights under the Australian Constitution and he has appeared as a barrister in the High Court in many cases over the past two decades, including on freedom of speech, freedom from racial discrimination and the rule of law. He is a columnist for The Australian.

Facilitator - PRINCESS VENTURA

Regional Director - NSW, Urbis

Princess is an economist and project manager with over 20 years of international and local experience.

Throughout her career, Princess has studied and worked in the Philippines, the United States, Sri Lanka and Australia. Prior to Urbis, she was an Economist for several years for The World Bank in international development. Here she advised policy makers on the design and implementation of reforms in a variety of economic spheres and conducted economic and policy analysis.

In her role of Property, Economics and Research Director and Regional Director NSW at Urbis, Princess applies the same expertise in economic research and analysis to help clients make evidence-based decisions to design places that work.

PROFESSOR CHRIS PETTIT

Director - City Futures Research Centre, UNSW

Chris Pettit is the Director of the City Futures Research Centre, inaugural professor of Urban Science, and Plus Alliance Fellow at UNSW Sydney. He currently Chair of the Board of Directors for CUPUM (Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management) and on the International Advisory Board for the “Geo for all” initiative. He is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia’s National Plantech Wrking Group, the advisory board for the Centre for Data Leadership, the Committee for Sydney’s Smart Cities Taskforce and the NSW Government Expert Advisory Group for Planning Evidence and Insights.

Prof Pettit established the City Analytics Lab (CAL), a dedicated space designed to support collaborative city planning and user-centred design https://www.be.unsw.edu.au/content/city-analytics-lab. He is an investigator on a number of ARC, CRC and Industry projects including Chief Investigator on the Rapid Analytics Interactive Scenario Explorer Toolkit and more recently – “Value Australia – Sharpening our land and property decisions with Artificial Intelligence”.

Prof Pettit’s expertise is in the convergence of the fields of city planning and digital technologies including Geographical Information Sciences (GIS). He has given numerous keynote addresses at conferences around the world, is on the editorial board for a number of journals and has published over 200 academic papers. For the last 25 years, he has been undertaking research and development in the use of digital planning tools to support a data-driven approach to geodesigning future city scenarios. His research expertise also spans into understanding the utility and usability of geographical visualization tools including, advanced spatial decision support systems and city dashboards.

Business Sydney