Max Blatto Email & Phone Number

Brisbane, Australia

• Managing cost estimation for the Infrastructure Capital Works Program from concept through to construction phase• Providing expert estimation advice and review project cost estimates for Strategic Transport, Road Rehabilitation/Upgrades, Flood Mitigation, Parks/Sports, Drainage, Corporate Facilities, City Maintenance• Design and creation of relational databases in SQL Server for capital cost, productivity, and unit rates benchmarking • Data Analysis including coding in T-SQL, Python, Excel and Power BI for construction unit rates, capital portfolio formation, and multi-rate cost items dashboards• Significantly improved estimating accuracy, evidenced by contractors’ prices being now within a small percentage of our estimates, benefiting Capital Portfolio Budgeting and Forecasting• Reviewing on average five estimates per week and instilled first principle estimates for roads, bikeways, covering excavation, drainage, pavements, resurfacing, preliminaries and traffic control• Generated and kept a thorough Estimate Breakdown Structure comprising over 800 cost items, based on TMR Cost Elements/Specifications and ICC Standard Drawings• Analysed over 300 projects, produced cost per unit and cost percentages, and benchmarks for major subprograms that fed into high level Design and Construction budgeting and forecasting • Designed an estimating template through workshops involving representatives across all departmental branches, delivered training to users and further embedded a basis of estimate checklist• Revised cost estimation standards, business rules, methods, systems and templates by continually working to improve estimation maturity in first principles estimation• Maintaining contemporary resource, productivity and escalation rates that align with current sectors, pricing trends and construction methodologies• Providing expert opinion on contract rates/prices for selected tender evaluations and managing commercial risk analysis applications

Brisbane, Australia

Austrak, a company owned by Vossloh, is a world leader in railway sleeper design and production technology. Reported to the General Manager, my project assignments delivered:• New Master Estimating Tool and Guidelines which enable production of estimates for 14 types of concrete sleepers from 3 factories in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria• The New Estimating Tool enables stable, consistent, reliable production of estimates under a variety of production scenarios, as well as benchmarking analyses across factories• New estimating standards for Labour Rates, Productivity, Material and Resources Rates• New Labour Cost Estimating model for concrete turnouts production• Sustainability Data and Reporting Book tracking the resource usage by factory for water, fuel, electricity, CO2 emissions, over the last 3 years

Brisbane, Australia

Providing services in Pre-Contracts, Bid Management and Estimating Services including Forecasting, Cost Engineering and Analytics within the construction, resources, civil, rail and infrastructure sectors.

Brisbane, Australia

Leadership of the Estimating and Pre-Contracts Team, from opportunity identification and estimating through to project handover to operations, while establishing new workflows, standards and systems.Highlights:• Provided structure, clarity and direction to the team by introducing governance, planning and daily management practices which resulted in higher productivity, higher morale and quality output of work• Delivered an effective opportunity pipeline management system that enabled scheduling estimating resources, and provided analytics for revenue forecasting and tender winning ratios. • Boosted the win ratio from 13% to 36% on tenders that reached a decision, which equated to an extra $17M in total value secured for the 2015/2016 financial year• Successfully delivered over 100 tender submissions, including reprices worth nearly $1.0B, with an average of circa 1 tender submission per working day.• Delivered bid leadership, direct management and on-the-job coaching to employees while overseeing the program of current and future tenders and managing a budget of circa $2M

Brisbane, Australia

Promoted in January 2012 to establish and lead a new national Cost Management function, called Insite, while providing cost, productivity and revenue knowledge analytics across Australia.Highlights: • Independently developed and enforced a common set of estimating standards to ensure greater consistency in bids that included labour rates, staff salary rates, roster analysis tools, plant reference data, commodity forecast models and escalation calculations• Instilled confidence in senior leaders during the estimate review process by providing a comprehensive Benchmarking Dashboard and key metrics for contract values, preliminaries, labour hour costs, staff costs and man hour productivity ratios• Directly participated in securing 14 new contracts worth a total value of $2.1B and resulting in a total profit margin of $231M• Designed and delivered weekly Work Winning Dashboard that supplied business intelligence, insights and analytics for revenue, margin, tender winning ratios, region and sector targets, portfolio opportunities, client and sale trends • Supported 67 bids and 14 projects with various work including Labour Rates, Staff Salary Rates, Escalation Calculations, Roster Change Analysis and Site Allowance calculations• Recognised by leaders as a skilled mentor by adjusting own leadership style, sharing expertise, offering praise and constructive feedback in order to elicit a high-performing and cohesive team

Brisbane

Assigned to lead the Northern Region Infrastructure Pre-Contracts team by managing the entire life cycle of opportunities from business development to estimating and contract negotiation.Highlights:• Guided a professional team of 15 direct reports and provided high-level technical knowledge, commercial input and advice for risks and mitigation strategies across a range of construction projects • Personally led the Broadmeadow Sustaining Operations Mechanical Electrical Works bid, a coal clearance system for BHP Billiton in QLD that attained an 12% profit margin• Produced 42 tender submissions, including re-prices worth $4.3B with an average weekly value of $109M• Successfully secured 7 out of 10 projects that reached a decision, with a final total profit margin of $74M • Managed a cost budget of $5.3M and in 9 months saved tendering costs by approximately $500K

Brisbane

Promoted to oversee the power sector that focussed on thermal generation, client management, bid leadership, business development to ensure consistency in project branding.Highlights:• Achieved preferred construction partner status with Alstom Power by proactively managing key relationships, leading teams through joint alliance workshops, commercial models and tenders• Bid leadership results worth over $600M include, SNC Lavalin Solar Dawn Power Plant (QLD); AGL and Alstom Dalton Power Station (NSW) and Tarrone Power Station (VIC); QGC and CH2M Hill Kumbarilla Park Power Station (QLD); Energy Australia and Alstom Tallawarra B Power Station (NSW) • Produced first principle estimates for Labour Hour costs and Preliminaries including site supervision, site establishment, site infrastructure, inclement weather, guarantees, equipment and services for majority of bids

Brsibane

Purpose of role was to improve the power, mining and civil construction business in QLD and NT by establishing and maintaining client relationships and Joint Venture (JV) partners while generating new project opportunities.Highlights:Major bid leadership results include:• Two wins with a $420M combined value and $56M combined profit margin; Origin Energy, Darling Downs Power Station (QLD), 630MW Gas and Steam Turbines configuration which is Australia’s largest combined cycle power station • Laing O’Rourke/CH2M Hill JV construction package• Rio Tinto Alcan, Gove G3 (NT) for materials handling, boilers, turbine installation, buildings and balance of plantInitiated and created the Laing O’Rourke Client Relationship and Communication Plan and maximised the probability of success by interpreting client drivers, leading tendering activities, designing winning bid strategies and managing multi-disciplined teams that won profitable contracts.

Brisbane, Australia

Developed the Mining & Energy Services Council of Australia (MESCA) as a leading national industry network by promoting the capabilities of top level Australian contractors, manufacturers and suppliers to the mining, energy and processing industries.Highlights: • Achieved Profit on Sales ratio of 40%, doubling MESCA’s gross profit in less than 1 year• Generated over $65M of new orders within the mining and resource sectors that led to 1150 new jobs • Secured over 160 new member companies which tripled MESCA’s clientele in QLD, VIC and NSW