Global law firm Ashurst has launched a new infrastructure advisory offering in Australia.
Ashurst’s new infrastructure offering will expand on the firm’s existing Risk Advisory practice by combining strategic policy, commercial advisory, and project risk advisory capabilities to support clients across the project life-cycle. The offering will also complement Ashurst’s projects team, which assists governments and the private sector on the delivery of major capital programs and projects.
“The launch of the Infrastructure advisory offering reflects significant and ongoing shifts in the development of our cities and the infrastructure supporting them,” stated Sydney-based global chief client officer Jamie Ng.
Cameron Jaggers, Sonia Haque Vatcher, Ben Rooke, and Matt Dunn
Leading the newly-formed offering are four freshly appointed partners: Sonia Haque-Vatcher, Cameron Jaggers, Ben Rooke, and Matthew Dunn.
A specialist in large-scale transformations, Sonia Haque-Vatcher crosses to Ashurst after spending the past six years in senior data & analytics and financial crime roles at the Commonwealth Bank, including as division COO. Prior to joining, she spent seven years at Deloitte as a consulting director and manager between Sydney and the UK, before which she worked at Barclays and IT consulting and managed services firm Calyx in London.
Cameron Jaggers meanwhile becomes the latest partner to depart PwC Australia’s crumbling integrated infrastructure practice, following among others Alvarez & Marsal’s new infrastructure division leader Amber Stevens. A project design and governance, risk & assurance expert, Jaggers joined PwC as a partner in Brisbane in 2021 after spending the previous decade and a half at KPMG, having earlier kicked off his career as a consultant at Ernst & Young.
Also having spent an earlier part of his career at EY before returning to an infrastructure financing role with NSW Treasury in 2013, Matthew Dunn joins Ashurst as a partner in Sydney from his most recent senior executive position leading Transport for NSW’s infrastructure & project finance team, where he has spent the past seven and a half years specialising in complex public-private projects.
Ben Rooke likewise joins Ashurst in Sydney from the NSW public sector, where he was most recently an executive director of strategic projects and commercial transactions with the Department of Enterprise, Investment & Trade. Earlier, he spent two years at PwC as an infrastructure & urban renewal director, with other public sector roles including time with the Department of Communities WA and the Victorian treasury and finance department.