John Binks joined the Hong Kong Government in 1981 and retired from full-time public service as a Directorate grade officer at the end of 2008. Starting his career as a civil engineer working on new town development John rose through the ranks and went on to be involved with many of Hong Kong's notable milestone projects. He was an expert member of the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group overseeing and directing areas such as defence transition and infrastructure contracts, was a senior member of the team dealing with the SARS outbreak and was Project Manager for the highly-praised WTO ministerial conference. John's last public service role was as Operational Readiness Director for the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic equestrian events in Hong Kong. Following his "retirement" John now advises on a whole range of Hong Kong relatedprojects across multiple industries. Leveraging his experience and expertise organising and directing large scale events (including the Hong Kong Handover, WTO Ministerial Conference, Olympic and Paralympic Equestrian Games, and Shanghai Expo Opening Ceremony) his recent focus has been on the development of event venues in Hong Kong, particularly the harbourfront.