Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to the Finance Friends podcast. Whether you have followed us from the beginning or you're a new listener, we are excited to have you here. Finance Friends gives our listeners a seat at the table with successful finance industry leaders. Follow us on our socials at Finance Friends Podcast, linked in the description box of this episode, and stay tuned for weekly episode releases. Today on the Finance Friends Podcast we have Nadia Jaworski, who is a joint founder and partner of Maverick Advisors. She provides social infrastructure advisory to both government and the private sector. She's got over 25 years experience working for the government in social infrastructure advisory and working in the private sector. She has really insightful stories and an understanding of what it takes to get a social government or social infrastructure project from an idea to working operation. Listen in and don't forget to follow us on Finance Friends podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Good morning, nadia. Welcome to Finance Friends. How are you today? Thank you From Monday morning. Monday morning it is early in the morning, 9.30. And you mentioned you had a busy weekend, lots of family catch-ups, it's been great, you know, catching up with everybody.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Yeah, that's great, and you also mentioned that you're in Force Creek the other week, so what brings you to Force Creek? Couldn't imagine there's any snow in April.

Speaker 2: 1:36

No, no, it's very beautiful down there. However, I am on the board of Alpine Resort Victoria. What's pretty exciting about that role is we're looking at making sure that there's a financial viability for the sector for the snow, white season and green season going forward, and so it's very important for economic returns for Victoria around visitation destination, and so we're working really hard to make sure that there's a long-term viability of skiing and resorts more broadly.

Speaker 1: 2:08

And is it growing in Australia skiing? Because I know a lot of people are going to Japan. It's quite common. Obviously Japanese yen's a bit lower and they get. From my understanding, japan gets the most snow in any country in the world, so are you encouraging people to go come domestically to Force Creek and resorts alike?

Speaker 2: 2:28

Look. I think we have to realise we've got a real natural beauty in Victoria and in Australia that's really unique for our visitor destination points and also the economic component of regional communities and jobs and visitation just for national parks, and so we're really encouraging and we know that there's important investments that are made to have that unique experience in Victoria.

Speaker 3: 2:53

Yes, you can go to Japan, but I think Australia's got its own uniqueness around parks and snow and for green season as well.

Speaker 2: 3:00

So there's lots of things happening around bike riding and hiking and luge, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 3:05

Yeah, and trail running has become really popular too, and a few friends of mine have done some trail runs around that region.

Speaker 2: 3:12

Yeah, it's getting really popular. We're making sure that there's unique experiences all year round.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Yeah, so being on the board. So you're on the board of.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Alpine Resort Victoria.

Speaker 1: 3:27

Okay, so maybe touching a little bit more, what does the, what does that role involve?

Speaker 2: 3:31

so really it's about making sure that all resorts around victoria we've amalgamated them into one entity and making sure that there's financial viability. The other remit is around climate change, but also making sure that we've got First Nations involvement as well, because, as we do developments in natural parks and resources and there's lots of different First Nations areas. We focus on Tanarong and Gunai-Kerno, and so we're making sure that there's a whole range of balancing those three things around the financial viability, how we invest sustainably and make sure that we've got future legacy outcomes for future generations.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Yeah, so it's quite interesting that you're on the board of Alpine Resorts. How did you get there? So maybe let's touch on your current role at Maverick Advisors. So you founded that business and you're a partner of that firm, so can you share a little bit about Maverick Advisors and what you do?

Speaker 2: 4:33

So Maverick Advisors is a boutique investment strategy. So that's financial investment strategy right through to delivery all across the project lifecycle investment strategy right through to delivery across the project life cycle. But if I look about how I came to Maverick and founding that I spent a lot of my career in social infrastructure and for me that's been really important. I'm Ukrainian heritage from an immigrant family on both sides, and what was really important to my family and the success of our optimal family generation was really having that sense of community, community building and that made a difference.

Speaker 2: 5:16

So what that's meant for me is I've always leant towards working with a social infrastructure and for those who don't know the difference about economic and social, it's really around thinking about things that you don't necessarily pay for so social housing affordable housing, hospitals, schools, all the things that really make a cohesive social fabric and make a difference in people's lives, and so I spend a lot of time in government state government in those sectors, working my way through from delivery of those construction projects right up to the front end of financing them, working with what we call Department of Treasury and Finance business cases, getting the funding and financing and the different types of contracts to get those large scale precincts or infrastructure projects

Speaker 1: 6:04

funded from Treasury and then into delivery. Yeah, so what is the time taken? Because to deliver let's say an example, let's say a hospital or a school, to deliver that project, from the initial thoughts or understanding, there's a need to come and get into working operation. Can you talk through that process and the time it takes so someone like myself who's not familiar with that space can understand what's involved? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 3: 6:40

So generally if you look at something like the New Footscray. Hospital the $1.5 billion new Whizbang Hospital out in the inner west it's probably about a five to six year end to end project.

Speaker 2: 6:53

So we would start traditionally working on the needs model, the demand data and the business case would take into consideration all of that whole of system requirements.

Speaker 3: 7:06

So if you don't have a cancer centre in that part of the world or you don't have certain services.

Speaker 2: 7:11

We would do planning models of care, then get developed and service plans and then we start with what we would call the feasibility study of what sort of things would we build where, and how the size, the scale that then informs a business case. So the Department of Treasury and Finance has a very specific template.

Speaker 2: 7:32

That document's quite intensive and I've led those types of business cases. So I'll be working with a team of technical experts as well as economic experts. So we will look at, for the dollar invested, invested, what's the return of investment back to the state into the economy right through to what would be the design we work with?

Speaker 3: 7:53

I work with architects, engineering planners, the clinicians, the doctors themselves are on user groups to say well, what would we design and what does that cost?

Speaker 2: 8:03

So you have a quantity surveyor that then informs a pretty hefty document usually around 200 pages lots of risk, registers, cost plans, designs that really get stress tested and then form a procurement strategy of how we would go to market.

Speaker 3: 8:20

So we would do market sounding with the big tier one contractors.

Speaker 2: 8:24

I'm thinking people like Len Leases, john Hollands, multiplexes of the world builds. They get really involved and they start to gear up for these types of projects. That would take about two years to get to the project sign off and the funding being allocated from Treasury going to market and the build that can take another up to two years, and so you can see they're quite lengthy projects. Lots of involvement, end-to-end and lots of rigor.

Speaker 2: 8:54

Lots of stakeholder and user group components, but at the end we we like to see brand new social infrastructure that really meets the needs of the community and using our taxpayer dollars effectively, and that's where the financial sense checking and the commercial modelling is really important as well, to make sure that that transaction delivers on what the state and the community expects.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Yeah, and what they ultimately, as a voting member in the national or federal elections coming up in about five weeks, votes for, and it's part of the community and growing the community. So, no, it's great. It's interesting you say that because most of my brothers work in construction. They've both worked on the Footscray Hospital, so I don't think they're working there at the moment. So what's Is the biggest challenge through that process in your role and maybe, if you can share from working for the government now working as an advisor on those projects?

Speaker 2: 9:56

So I've worked on both sides, even outside, as an advisor. I've worked for government and I've worked for private client side. I think at the moment the biggest challenge is very tight fiscal environments, and so government and private sector both have to do a lot of rigour around the investment strategies when and how and how much they're likely to invest and what are they likely? To get for their investment dollar and so I think that's really changed.

Speaker 2: 10:26

During COVID and post-COVID was quite a boom in infrastructure, and so there was a lot more of a pie investment pie to be allocated, but we've really seen the shift to a tighter market for governments. The government's really starting to reprioritise heavily and refocus on what's the most pointy end of infrastructure they want to invest in. So if you think about hospitals.

Speaker 2: 10:51

They'll be looking at what are the top tranche that's really critical for community and where the gaps are Same with road and rail, and then for private side we're seeing a lot of clients really starting to think about well, if we are investing in this global market, that's quite unstable how certain are we? Around the investment decisions that are being made and that the return on that investment is going to deliver.

Speaker 3: 11:18

Not only the shareholders, but what government?

Speaker 2: 11:21

is also expecting as a partner. So we're seeing that I'm seeing much more rigour around where those decisions are being made and the benefits.

Speaker 1: 11:31

the benefit realisation is really highly focused, and how much does the current interest rate affect the ability to, I guess, deliver a project and the cost of finance?

Speaker 2: 11:48

Look, I think that it's, really it's not just the interest rates I think it's the whole global volatility of a whole range of different drivers.

Speaker 3: 11:57

If you take something like the Housing Availability Affordability Fund by the Commonwealth that got set up to try and manage that for housing associations and housing suppliers.

Speaker 2: 12:08

So that there was a much more certainty around interest rate coverage and to manage that volatility, so we saw a lot of affordable and social housing projects announced recently, and so that's given more certainty for people to invest for build, to rent and key worker housing as well. In terms of something like the hospital projects. We're really making sure that when we're doing the business cases, that those contingencies are really costed as part of the cost plan and the budget, to make sure that there's room to manage the coverage of any escalation points.

Speaker 3: 12:47

That's not only just on interest rates.

Speaker 2: 12:49

We're talking about supply chain cost of labour, and we're still yet to see what the trade tariff laws are going to have as an impact so we're always looking at contingencies and making sure that the budget's got that too.

Speaker 1: 13:03

Yeah, it's interesting from an external point of view and just reading sort of papers AFR, et cetera we do see a number of projects that do go over budget. So can you share with us maybe some insights into why that is the case and you know things that maybe the average person might not be aware of?

Speaker 2: 13:27

Look, there's lots of things that can impact. I mean, if we have a think about what happened during COVID, the supply chain totally got cut off in terms of what was happening globally.

Speaker 3: 13:39

So, if you think about prices, of steel, timber imports.

Speaker 2: 13:43

Really, if you had planned a project, a couple, of years before COVID had kicked in you would have found yourself in a place where your budget would have been nowhere near what the cost of the supplies would have been budgeted for 18 months to 24 months earlier.

Speaker 3: 14:00

And so it's really about the volatility of the market where we hadn't seen a lot of that happening for a very long time. There's also big build, so Victoria's got a lot going on, and so is Queensland at the moment with all their hospitals and stadia and the Olympic Games.

Speaker 2: 14:15

And so when you start to conflate a lot of big build projects all at the same time.

Speaker 3: 14:20

What we find is that also escalates cost of materials or labour shortages, trades smaller trades that have to impact.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Think about your electrical trades smaller trades that have to impact.

Speaker 3: 14:29

If you think about your electrical, mechanical, your plumbing, and so you have to start to think about all the impacts that are happening in concert that start to have congestion points with bills, not only in Victoria but nationally.

Speaker 1: 14:42

Yeah, of course. And how did you get to where you are today? So you talked about your parents or grandparents being migrants from Ukraine and talked about social infrastructure and how important it is. Did you know at the age of 15 that you wanted to work in social infrastructure advisory? You talk us through that process. When did you know this is what I want to do? My dad was a global engineer and so at a very young age or you talk us through that process.

Speaker 2: 15:11

When did you know this is what I want to do? This is what I want to do. My dad was a global engineer, and so at a very young age he made sure my sister and I were very across how to use power tools, all the electrical appliances, and so we were always in and around hammers, drills, saws. He also made sure, he and my mum, that we could absolutely be whatever we wanted and we weren't really pushed into gender-based jobs or training.

Speaker 2: 15:37

I really fell in love with social infrastructure when I started in government in social and affordable housing. I spent a lot of time in that space changing the regulatory framework, registering the first housing associations and starting to do housing builds, housing redevelopments all the public housing redevelopments, precinct redevelopments and really loved being able to see tangible things being built because I felt like I was making an impact and I could really see people going into those affordable homes and seeing what a difference it made to their lives and then being able to reconnect back into services, jobs, training, reconnecting with families.

Speaker 2: 16:14

So that's where I started. After 17 years in state government. I worked in health and education.

Speaker 3: 16:20

So I was doing school builds hospital builds mental health facilities.

Speaker 2: 16:25

I ended up going to the dark side of consulting. So I had a friend who said would I be willing to start up the Asia Pacific social infrastructure?

Speaker 3: 16:35

part of Advisium which was Wally Parsons, Evans and Peck.

Speaker 2: 16:40

So I took that on board and took to it like a duck to water, really enjoyed the diversity and all the challenges that came with working providing advisory to both government and private clients. From there, I then moved into.

Speaker 3: 16:55

PricewaterhouseCoopers and was a partner in the infrastructure business there Again really leading large-scale social infrastructure projects like the quarantine commercially and nationally, so I was running.

Speaker 2: 17:09

Mickelham in Vic, Queensland and WA in. Covid out of my study Also just being able to do whole portfolio pieces for Vic Health Building Authority, running portfolio investment strategies and running all the business cases, and so that really gave me great exposure to large, high-value, high-risk projects and really found I love working in uncertainty and shaping investment strategies and really hearing all the different stakeholders and all the different needs and being able to come up with concepts that can balance a whole range of different priorities.

Speaker 2: 17:46

But it's been really important doing the delivery of projects to be able to bring that up the life cycle, to understand how to do good strategy.

Speaker 1: 17:55

And how do you deal with the stress that there are so many different factors that can influence the outcome, whether it be positive or negative?

Speaker 2: 18:08

I'm probably a unique creature in that I quite like living in uncertain booker environments. So those of you volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and really being able to shape it. That's really exciting for me Talking to a lot of stakeholders and partners, understanding what's really driving and motivating and being able to what's really driving and motivating and being able to help bring really complex financial and investment strategies down to really simple concepts that people can understand the tensions and trade-offs and the decisions that they're making. Because, often with optionality.

Speaker 3: 18:45

You do bookends you can do nothing, or you can do the most gold-tapped version you do bookends, you can do nothing or you can do the most gold-tapped version.

Speaker 2: 18:50

Really, where most people sit is the middle ground which is the silver or bronze. There's a real skill in being able to show people what they're buying and what they're investing in, and what their likely return on investment is and what they're not buying or achieving and getting out of something, and so we've been able to hone that at Maverick. We've been we really have just been. We've got the most high-level experts in the field, both from a political lens and delivery lens and investment strategy that we don't use a leverage model.

Speaker 2: 19:22

We found that doesn't work because we really need the smarts to really be able to showcase for clients what their dollar's really buying in this really critical fiscal environment.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Yeah, and how do you see your industry or infrastructure, social infrastructure, evolving over the next five, ten years, or how would you like to see it evolve?

Speaker 3: 19:49

I think we're going to have to get smarter to have greater return on investment for certain projects and I really think that we need to make sure that the silos are being moved away, and so what I mean by that is if you've got a precinct like Arden Precinct in North Melbourne, it can't be just a hospital project, it can't be just a housing project, it can't be just a road or transport project.

Speaker 2: 20:14

We really need to start to think about communities that we're building and the precincts that we're building and the precincts that we're building and so when we're investing. How are we, as custodians of these sites for legacy?

Speaker 3: 20:25

outcomes. How are we thinking about them as future? Precincts for people to work access health services live meet up with families and friends.

Speaker 2: 20:36

How are we thinking about that investment as a holistic precinct? Redevelopment rather than just one individual investment and construction projects on their own.

Speaker 1: 20:47

Yeah, which is quite interesting. You know, bring the community together, that you know. It's almost like your one-stop shop for everything. That's right.

Speaker 2: 20:55

And obviously there's. You know we're always thinking about sustainability and so, because we can't invest in everything right now, there's climate change and climate sustainability, but also about how do you future proof and think about considered stages of investment so that we're not boxing out and blocking future change or future investment or ideas, so that because we've seen too many times where I know projects, people will just plonk something right in the middle of a precinct without really thinking about what's the 10-year plan, what's the master plan look like?

Speaker 3: 21:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:28

And how does it feed into future development and population growth, and what will the future needs be?

Speaker 1: 21:34

Yeah, so you see a lot about engaging various different stakeholders at a local council level all the way up to state and Commonwealth but also then you're talking about dealing with, you know, lendlease Multiplex and these large organisations to understand the budget and be able to deliver that and present you know the opportunity for investment.

Speaker 2: 21:58

And we're starting to also see much more investment from private equity super funds into social infrastructure. They're now seeing them as real asset classes to have socially conscious investment, and so we're seeing that change as well. So they also want to see that there's future for investment for their stakeholders and clients.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Yeah, that's great. So if someone wants to get into social infrastructure advisory, what advice would you give? What advice would you give your young 22-year-old self?

Speaker 2: 22:36

I think just give anything a go. There's been a lot of times along my career I was asked to take on a role or a project that I thought I don't know if I actually know how to do this. But just trust in yourself and I think, just give anything a go, because you learn from those projects. You meet new people.

Speaker 2: 22:57

The networking has been really critical for me how many times I've been able to ring up a past client or a past partner that I've worked with to retest something or revalidate, and it is all about learning and testing. There's no one, nothing, it's not one solution.

Speaker 1: 23:16

There's lots of solutions.

Speaker 2: 23:18

And I co-design. Co-design is really important because that means people have the opportunity to test and, you know, give you feedback along the way.

Speaker 1: 23:29

You don't have to own it all yourself, yeah, and just be open to that feedback as well and don't take it personally. So you talked about you know reaching out to ex-partners that you worked with. Has there been someone that's been a big influence on your life throughout your career, whether it be early on? You talked about your dad being an engineer and really giving you exposure to you know use hand tools and be open to learning and doing different things. Is there someone that comes to mind?

Speaker 2: 23:55

Look, I would still say I still ring my dad even now if I've got a tricky scenario or a strategy obviously de-identified around even in my professional career around testing which way I should go. What are the options. Have I thought about all the risks Again? Just making sure there's a safe sounding board to test? Safe sounding board to test? And very early on in my career I was given opportunity by a woman in power to give me just that opportunity to try projects early on where they were way above probably my skill set and competency at the time Safe environments. I think I've been just really, really I've had a lot of good mentors along the way.

Speaker 1: 24:44

I've just been pretty lucky, I guess, and you seem like you're a mentor yourself. I know that your daughter works with you a couple of days a week while she's studying. Are you being her mentor, empowering her to learn about this space as well?

Speaker 2: 25:00

I have three daughters and so I'm really passionate about women in infrastructure.

Speaker 3: 25:05

I think I really want to make sure my daughters and all young women can see that this is a real pathway and a roadmap for people that are interested in something different.

Speaker 2: 25:17

It's really important that we've got those pathways, both in business, in construction. It means we've got the future generations coming through, so that's been really important.

Speaker 1: 25:31

Yeah, and I think from my perspective, having you know female in infrastructure projects and advisory gives a very different perspective to what just the male perspective would be. So I think that is great that you are encouraging both your three daughters. I'm sure you've been able to encourage, mentor and empower lots of other women along your journey.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Yes, and I actually had one story of someone who was my EA and I felt she was so talented I actually had suggested that she go and do a project management course. She went and did that I funded that at the time and she's now a very successful project manager in her own right, so really proud to have another woman in senior infrastructure in that space.

Speaker 2: 26:26

But I think you know Maverick Advisors as well. We're 50% female lead-on. We've got lots of female infrastructure advisors in our team and that's really critical to our success and we think that's how you can offer it.

Speaker 1: 26:38

Yeah well, thank you for sharing that. It's good to learn more about you and your career and what you do, and congratulations on the success of Maverick Advisors to date and all the future success. Thank you for coming on. Finance Friends, nadia, thanks, cheers.

Speaker 3: 26:56

Disclaimer this podcast exists for informational and entertainment purposes only. The personal opinions of the speaker and guests do not represent the view of any other party. If this recording contains reference to financial products, that reference does not constitute advice nor recommendations and may not be relied upon.