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Kay Salvair Smith
Consultant, MinterEllison Consulting, Sydney
For more than 20 years I have partnered with government and private clients to deliver commercial and technical infrastructure solutions across project and asset lifecycle phases in the Australian infrastructure and development markets.

I am privileged to lead a team comfortable with unravelling ambiguity to create certainty, partnering with our clients to develop and deliver strategies to build value and deliver measurable outcomes across large-scale, complex, infrastructure and asset-intensive projects. I have held senior leadership roles in ASX and LSE listed consulting organisations.

I am passionate about supporting indigenous tertiary engineering education and empowering and mentoring women. I'm a Leadership Ambassador for SPS Leaders Alliance, raising the bar on leadership in engineering and construction.

I've had the privilege of providing leadership to my teams, delivering graduate and future leaders initiatives, including establishing an Indigenous Australian, undergraduate engineering scholarship, taking a small but active step to addressing the underrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in engineering.

I have an engineering and construction economics background and I am proud of the contribution I have made to the Australian infrastructure and development sectors. I am equally proud of the work I have done in the not for profit sector on initiatives to support women and children impacted by domestic violence and disadvantage.

I specialise in providing complex infrastructure consulting services across lifecycle phases – through business case and market sounding, transaction management of procurement and negotiation, construction delivery, dispute guidance and mitigation strategies, and commercial due diligence for the sale process of infrastructure assets and engineering businesses.

Career highlights

  • Acting for The Department of Premier & Cabinet advising on the process for the evaluation of an unsolicited proposal.
  • Acting for ACT Government Capital Metro Agency (now Transport Canberra) as Transaction Director Canberra Light Rail PPP. This project was delivered under a PPP model. It had a capital design and construct value of approximately $707 million and total project value of $939 million (measured as at 1 January 2016).
  • Acting for Port Authority NSW & The Department of Premier & Cabinet, leading the development of a business case port options study and sea/land transport strategy to inform the business case for Glebe Island, including development and implementation of a stakeholder management strategy with central government, the transport cluster and industry. The outcome for Government included informed decision making and a Glebe Island development strategy.
  • Acting for Transport for New South Wales as dispute mitigation committee member leading the development and drafting of the mitigation strategy guidance and addressing risks and opportunities for two major contractors – D&C and PPP, for the project assurance board.
  • Acting for Hancock Prospecting lead and support for commercial, procurement and risk advisory services to Roy Hill Project for lead entities Roy Hill and POSCO/STX for four key packages in excess of $4 billion, including port, landside port, rail and process.
  • Acting for Broadcast Australia, leading the provision of advisory services to the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Broadcast Australia on organisational, project delivery strategy and governance matters relating to capital works and asset reinvestment programs and risk.
  • Acting for ARTC's Inland Rail Programme (Melbourne to Brisbane) as co-lead for the independent analysis and update of the Inland Rail procurement and delivery strategy including, industry engagement and market testing process and development of procurement and delivery strategies for 13 projects and programme wide procurement elements such as quarry products, ballast, rail and sleepers supply, construction water, construction accommodation, social performance and benefits programme, approaches to utilities relocations and environmental approval pathways.
  • RMS & WestConnex Delivery Authority, business case, market sounding and transaction director for WestConnex stage 1A, including tolling systems and intelligent transport network, drafting procurement and contract scope documents and contributing to the establishment of the WestConnex Delivery Authority (now SMC).
  • Acting for RMS Pacific Highway Upgrades as transactional and commercial/technical advisor to multiple Pacific Highway upgrade projects delivered under D&C an DCM models.
  • Acting for Department of Transport and Main Roads (Qld) as transactional and commercial/technical advisor to gateway upgrade and Tugun bypass delivered under D&C and alliance models.
  • Advising on commercial, transactional/procurement, feasibility and pre-feasibility for Metropolitan Rail Expansion Programs.

Our consulting services are provided by the partnerships known as MinterEllison Consulting (ABN 50 017 469 292) and MinterEllison Advisory (ABN 27 632 804 465) which operate through the company, MinterEllison Consulting Pty Limited (ABN 50 077 613 828), all of which are part of the MinterEllison Group. Our consulting services do not constitute legal services nor legal advice and are not provided by Australian legal practitioners acting in that capacity. The laws and regulations which govern the provision of legal services in the relevant jurisdiction do not apply to the provision of non-legal services.

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