Leaving BP and joining Watercare was a big step career-wise for Suzanne Lucas.

Suzanne decided to make a career change and become the general manager of our asset upgrades and renewals team two years ago.

Before that, she had worked for BP for 18 years in a variety of roles and joined the company in Wellington after doing a commerce degree majoring in marketing and commercial law at Victoria University.

"BP was really good at helping you build your career and provided lots of opportunities."

She worked in customer management, fuel pricing, contracts and strategy roles.

"My last role there was as an asset manager which involved finding new sites and managing construction and maintenance. I realised that I liked the construction side of the business. We had a big health and safety focus."

When the AUR job came up, she decided to go for it.

"When I joined the team, I was the only non-engineer and the second female. It was very intimidating coming into the role and I was absolutely questioning my abilities. I had to remind myself that I wasn't employed to be technical, but the first six months were really hard.

"I was worried about not having that technical background, but I think I've found my space and I can add value around leadership, health and safety, strategy and delivery."

It was an adjustment for the team, but they are supportive, she says.

"It's quite a close team and quite competitive. My role was a new one so I was able to develop it and make it my own."

The team has about 40 people, depending on contractor numbers.

"My job involves a lot of meetings. For the past year, our primary focus was finding ways to deliver projects worth $15 million or less more efficiently. We've been through a long tender process and we're getting our operating model and the way we deliver projects up and running."

Her role also involves team leadership, strategy, and in 2023, a lot of emergency work from the Auckland Anniversary flooding.

"I'm trying to build a team people enjoy being part of, with a health and safety focus. What we require of our people is developing and changing. I want to make sure people believe health and safety is a priority, that we talk about it and make decisions where it's the primary focus."

Suzanne says leadership is about making sure that people understand how they fit into the big picture, so they have context.

"It's about understanding that everyone has different strengths and focusing on those strengths to make their roles fit them. There has to be an element of fun in there because we spend so much time at work with our colleagues. If you can't have fun with them, it's a really hard day. Teams also have to be accountable and deliver the work."

The AUR team takes the competition and fun elements seriously – a number of us do Friday lunchtime exercise classes together.

"We also have a Watercare indoor netball team that plays on Monday nights."

One of the highlights of 2023 was the developing, selecting and contracting of our new AUR panel members.

"It's been a huge amount of work and a lot of people had to collaborate on it. Everyone understood the need and people worked together really well to deliver in a relatively short timeframe.

"The panels we have put in place put us in a really good position to start delivering our programme of works more efficiently."

Outside of work, sport is a strong theme in Suzanne's life.

"We do a lot of sports as a family. I also go to the gym every morning for stress relief."

She leaves home at 5am to go to the gym before work.

"I'm a much nicer person when I've been to the gym."

Until recently, her husband stayed home with the children but now all three are at school, he has started working again.

"It worked really well for us as a family."

The kids all play sports as well, which takes up their evenings and weekends.