New president to lead ITS NZ to 2021,

This story first appeared in the september issue of EvTalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE

Stephen Hewett has been appointed the new president of Intelligent Transport Systems New Zealand, following board nominations and a vote by the board of directors.

The organisation will enjoy leadership continuity with David Vinsen as chair, while Andrew Gurr and Mike Rudge were appointed vice-president and treasurer respectively.

The role of board secretary has now been combined into the executive officer role. Emilio Marquez, New Zealand operations manager for SICE has joined the board.

Newly appointed president Stephen Hewett, a director and transport advisor at Beca, has been a long-serving ITS NZ board member, and was involved in bringing the ITS Asia Pacific forum to New Zealand in 2013.

In the past few years he has contributed significantly to the annual T-Tech conference which has doubled in size and attendance in three years, as well as leading the business plan setting out the organisation’s strategy and goals.

As a director of transport advisory at Beca, his work outside ITS NZ involves consulting on traffic operations, transport technology and modern mass rapid transit.

“It’s an exciting time for ITS, with innovations and disruptions affecting almost every facet of transport,” Hewett says.

“New technologies and business models are disrupting traffic operations and improving data, mobility as a service and multi-modal journeys are creating better choices, not to mention exponential innovations and new modes in passenger, freight and modern mass rapid transit vehicles.

“ITS NZ has never been in a better position, and much of that is through the hard work of a committed board of directors and especially the work of my predecessor Mohammed Hikmet who has contributed immensely to our growth here, and New Zealand’s reputation and participation internationally,” Hewett says.

“We have our core board appointed last month and will be co-opting representation from the NZ Transport Agency and Ministry of Transport. We will also be co-opting representation from academia and a youth board member as we hope to further develop succession planning within the board and encouraging skills development for the sector.

“Our current operational focus is preparing for the ITS World Congress in Singapore and planning for T-Tech 2020 and we will also begin work on our strategy through to 2022.”

Planning for T-Tech 2020 under way

T-Tech dates have been set as April 1 and 2, 2020, in Wellington.

ITSNZ is seeking interest from the industry to join the T-Tech planning team – a great opportunity to contribute to this growing event and raise your profile.

Anyone interested should contact Simon.McManus@itsnz.org for more information.

Outgoing ITS NZ president recognised in Entrepreneur of the Year Awards

Mohammed Hikmet has been recognised as one of five finalists in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, taking out the technology and emerging industries category.

Hikmet stood down from the board after four years in the president’s role and over 10 years serving ITS New Zealand, contributing significant time and effort to international events, including the ITS Asia-Pacific Board, the ITS World Congress Global Ambassador and head of the New Zealand delegation to the ISO TC204 standards committee and more.