A Principal Water Engineer, Project Director and Client Manager at Tonkin + Taylor, Dr Tim Fisher was an obvious choice for our Executive Leader– Clients as a technical and client leader in our business.  The Executive Leader– Clients is responsible for focusing the business on client outcomes.

It is a strategic role focusing on client and market strategies, with accountability for T+T’s performance for its clients.  The Client Executive role has five reporting Sector Directors, who have 50-60 Client Managers.  All revenue and profit will be tracked by the client axis. 

In the five years prior to taking up the Client Executive role, Tim Fisher has been T + T’s Water Sector Leader, responsible for collecting and sharing market intelligence, connecting staff and strategic planning for the Water Sector.

He holds a PhD (Civil) from University of British Columbia in Canada and Master of Engineering (Civil) from University of Canterbury. Tim has more than 20 years’ experience in New Zealand, Malaysia, Philippines, Canada and UK. He is also a chartered professional engineer and in 2017 he was inducted as an IPENZ Fellow.

Tim has specialist skills in water engineering and experience in major infrastructure projects. He has led design teams for major stormwater and award winning projects, as well as assessment of effects of stormwater systems, water quality, stream/culvert design and flood risk. Tim has written numerous technical papers and provided expert review and evidence on stormwater issues.

Tim Fisher was T+T’s Project Director and Technical Lead for the Earthquake Commission (EQC) Increased Flooding Vulnerability (IFV) project following the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES). Part of the Commission’s land insurance compensation programme, this project brought about the development of new policy for a form of land damage that had not previously been observed or insured. 

The IFV assessments deployed ground-breaking flood modelling technology and methods never before used in New Zealand.  The programme assessed all Christchurch residential properties, undertook approximately 11,000 site specific assessments and identified land damage to approximately 6,000 residential properties that formed the basis for insurance settlements.

The work to complete the site specific assessment in Christchurch required in excess of 75,000 person hours and is summarised in the paper “Assessment of Increased Flood Vulnerability due to the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence”, which won best paper at the 2014 Water NZ Stormwater Conference.

Tim Fisher has led or had significant involvement with a number of projects that have received industry recognition, including:

• Mangakotukutuku Stream Diversion (M-Stream diversion) (Solid Energy) which won the IPENZ Arthur Mead Award and Silver ACENZ Excellence Award (project manager and hydraulic designer)
• Northern Gateway Toll Road (NGTR) won the Gold ACENZ Excellence Award and IPENZ Merit Arthur Mead Award (stormwater team lead)
• Further North Alliance won an ACENZ Innovate Award of Excellence (Silver) for the innovative and cost effective delivery of consents (stormwater lead).

Tim is actively involved in the engineering profession as Chair of the IPENZ Auckland Branch, which puts on 30-40 events a year to provide technical content and networking opportunities for engineers.