Page 66 - Australian Defence Magazine July-August 2021

66 FROM THE SOURCE GEORGIA COLLINGWOOD & GAVIN CAMPBELL
JULY-AUGUST 2021
GEORGIA COLLINGWOOD &
GAVIN CAMPBELL
GENERAL MANAGER BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & EXECUTIVE GENERAL MANAGER DEFENCE | VENTIA
Ventia is one of Australia’s largest service providers and has been involved in Defence for three decades. ADM spoke to General Manager Business Development (Defence) Georgia Collingwood and Executive General Manager (Defence) Gavin Campbell at Land Forces 2021 in Brisbane
to find out more about the company’s ambitions in defence industry.
ADM: Gavin, can you tell us about Ventia and what you do? GAVIN: Ventia is one of the largest service providers in Aus- tralia and New Zealand. Ventia was created in 2015 fol- lowing the merger of Leighton Contractors Services divi- sion, Thiess Services and more recently Visionstream and Broadspectrum. We have a 30-year history with Defence, going back to manufacturing frigates for the Australian and New Zealand Navies in the 80s. Since then, we’ve worked closely and continuously with Defence to develop and de- liver services to meet the required capabilities.
More recently, we were actively involved in supporting Defence during bushfire and COVID
responses. We worked with Defence
to set up the Howard Springs quar-
ADM: What do you feel are the biggest impediments at the moment for growth in the Defence industry?
GAVIN: You could say one of the challenges is keeping up with the pace of change that is required for such a demand- ing industry. We continually seek feedback from Defence around the solutions that are going to best meet their needs in current operations but also for future opportunities. I would suggest that this is the same for many Defence primes and SMEs but seeing the quality and quantity of expertise of the industry at Land Forces, I think Defence is well placed to grow their capabilities in a sovereign environment.
antine facility, bringing back Austra-
lians from overseas, and we continue 2021 to provide a depth of services from firefighting, to catering, to facilities 2020 management, to military equipment 2018 and vehicle maintenance.
ADM: What are the strengths that 2012 Ventia offer to Defence?
GAVIN: Our core strengths lie in asset 2006 management and maintenance and the 2000 support and sustainment of Defence
assets and facilities. Our aspiration is
to be known as the prime contractor for sustainment. We’re currently responsi-
ble for the management of around 1.4
million Defence assets so we’re invest- 2018 ing heavily in digital transformation to
harness asset data so that it better sup- 2014 ports capability and performance and ultimately a greater experience for the customer. We have introduced data 2009 mapping solutions, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), mobility and auto-
General Manager Business Development Defence, Ventia
Director, WTEC
Account Executive Defence, NEC Australia
Business Development Defence, CSG
C2I Liaison, Dept of Defence
JSSA C2I Program Manager, Dept of Defence
Executive General Manager Defence, Ventia
Executive General Manager, Operations & Maintenance, Ventia
Director of Maintenance, Sydney Trains
PROFILE: GEORGIA COLLINGWOOD
ADM: Georgia, can you tell us why Ventia have come to Land Forces? GEORGIA: We see it as a perfect op- portunity to promote the Ventia brand to Defence and defence in- dustry. We have a lot of existing ca- pability within Defence now, but as we’ve grown with the Ventia brand, there are more opportunities to high- light what we do. Given our capa- bility in delivering sustainment for the ADF, I’m keen for Ventia to form more partnerships with primes and SMEs to bring a full capability and solutions into Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG), Es- tate and Infrastructure Group, Chief Information Officer Group, and the other services groups of Defence.
ADM: Which domain is most impor- tant for Ventia?
GEORGIA: Currently, Ventia performs a significant amount of work on bases through our Base Services contract
CONTINUED ON PAGE 62
PROFILE: GAVIN CAMPBELL
mation solutions for work order pro- cessing, planning and scheduling.
2007 General Manager,
Qantas Defence Services