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For the last 20 years, Andrew has been on the Head of Property at Infratil. 

Prior to that, he cut his teeth in the growth phase of Goodman Property Trust. Today, it's one of the largest Industrial Property Portfolios in the World.

This role has taken him overseas, seen him develop and negotiate some of the largest property deals in ANZ and be at the forefront of designing and building some of the most sophisticated Property classes around - Data Centres. 

Alongside these roles, Andrew has actively participated in Auckland's Urban Design Panel and is currently the Chair and Co-Convener.

We sat down to discuss the evolution of his career, the skills that have been useful and the importance of good communication through complex development and negotiation projects. 

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The Property Council New Zealand has recently launched a series of interviews about the importance of Property in our economy. Like Health, Education, Accounting & Finance - property has become a key enabler of economic growth across the globe.

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Over the last 20 years, property funds and investment have matured in both skills, legal sophistication and returns to shareholders.

Greenfield developments like East Tamaki, Data Centre developments like Infratil's CDC aquisition, Cooper & Co's and Precinct's development of Auckland's Waterfront have all been examples of world-leading Property developments.

Andrew talked to this in our interview, covering off the importance of:

• Embracing the challenge - Property is an industry where you can get a lot of responsibility early on
• Good leadership is teaming up when something goes wrong - a problem shared is a problem solved
• Teaming up as an Industry - Teaming up on the Urban design panel creates better outcomes through discussion, debate and consideration
• Network requirements drive property requirements - thinking about how Property is a strategic advantage
• Property as a catalyst for change - In Industrial or office organisations, property can enable and support the change the organisation wants to achieve e.g. better customer experience to compete with new entrants, lower cost of operation through rationalisation, health and safety outcomes
• Successful projects are those that solve problems quickly - if you have good communication, you can manage risk
• Clash detection is also hugely important - better planning at the beginning saves so much time, money and pain