Experience
James has in-depth water and natural hazard prevention, preparedness and response to weather and flood emergency events relating to infrastructure, communities, agribusiness and enterprise risk in Australia, gained through senior roles at the Bureau of Meteorology and Sunwater.
At Sunwater he introduced new environmental monitoring equipment with equal performance, greater resilience and lower cost that traditional approaches in addition to the introduction of revised approaches to catchment risk understanding that reduced Capital planning estimates by $300 million.
He has led teams in high-pressure environments such as the Queensland/Brisbane floods of 2011, Townsville and outback monsoon floods in 2019, and provided advice to the Queensland Government on drought planning for Central Queensland in 2019. He has a record of delivery and understands the people, systems, and cultural elements that success requires including the value that technology and innovation can add.
More recently, he has delivered the 2023 strategic plan for the Bureau of Meteorology next generation Australian Flood Warning System, and provided advisory services to the Queensland Reconstruction Authority on risk, policy, and governance for the $750 million Resilient Home Fund – voluntary buyback managed relocation program.
