Navigating Major Programmes

Canada has long called itself “the North.” Now is the time to seize the economic opportunities so long unsupported in the country’s true North: Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. Sima Sahar Zerehi knows first-hand that building relationships is the key to delivering interconnected and impactful major infrastructure projects in Canada’s North. In this episode of the Master Builders series, the Chief Executive Officer of the Arctic Opportunities Group shares the fortuitous route that led her to leadership in what she considers the country’s most promising region.

Exuding passionate belief in Canada’s future, Sima unpacks how Arctic sovereignty conversations and renewed federal funding are shifting the narrative from untethered announcements to real, strategic projects that create jobs, unlock corridors, and signal Canada’s commitment to expanding “coast to coast to coast”. The way to success, however, differs from traditional major infrastructure approaches. Sima emphasizes that Inuit and Indigenous organizations in the North are vital partners from beginning to end, not simple stakeholders. Builders who want to expand into this largely untapped region need to start with relationships, respect that communities have already identified their priorities, and structure partnerships that create direct local benefits, not just revenue they can take with them when they leave.

Riccardo, Shormilla, and Sima’s conversation explores the need for right-sized business models that account for the timeline, cost, and local focus unique to Northern infrastructure projects. The creative and community-driven approach that Sima champions holds enormous promise, for both Canada’s True North and the provinces to the south.

Key Takeaways

• The importance of relationship-building and community consulting when working with Arctic organizations;
• How the North’s unique selection criteria keeps the focus on local economic growth;
• What we can learn from other Arctic nations, like Greenland;
• The significant impact of Nunavut’s four upcoming infrastructure projects;
• How shifting our perspective of Indigenous peoples from victims to resilient innovators will elevate Canada as a whole.

Quote:

“The attention to the Arctic is an attention to Canada as a country that expands coast to coast to coast.” - Sima Sahar Zerehi

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com 
• Follow Shormila Chatterjee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shormilac/ 
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow Sima Sahar Zerehi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sima-sahar-zerehi-14708520/ 

How do feminine-coded skills and thinking ahead transform the outcomes of major projects?  Marilyn Spink uses her experience, expertise, and eloquence to explore this and so much more in this episode of Master Builders. Approaching engineering as a practical force that materially improves how people live has driven Marilyn’s professional ventures for much of her impressive career. She’s a metallurgical and materials engineer whose career has spanned a wide range of industries. Today, she serves as Executive Director of the Canadian Critical Minerals and Materials Alliance. 

Marilyn turns a candid lens on why projects succeed or go sideways, citing delivery and procurement norms she has seen in Canada and around the world. Proudly independent of public oversight, she is unafraid to call out familiar failures. Her thoughtful explanations of why projects fail and how they could avoid pitfalls make a future of prosperous critical minerals projects in Canada feel attainable. 

Marilyn and hosts Shormilla and Riccardo discuss how long-term planning and accountability, as well as procurement approaches that consider more than just the lowest bid, make for stronger builds. They examine the need to balance social and environmental considerations with revenue generation. Throughout the conversation, Marilyn shares hard-won insights about advocacy and how the socially conditioned skill sets of women and other underrepresented groups will change the engineering industry as cultures of inclusivity continue to grow.

Key takeaways

• The skills and approaches required to make a project actually work in the long term;
• The meaningful impacts that engineering projects can have on communities;
• Using beer and food metaphors to highlight the opportunities of midstream minerals processing;
• The benefits of using a qualification-based selection to identify the best choice during procurement;
• Why unrealistic budgets and schedules undermine due diligence and set projects up to “fix” problems later.

Quote:

“You can make money, but you can also do things that are responsible from an environmental and social perspective.” - Marilyn Spink

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com 
• Follow Shormila Chatterjee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shormilac/ 
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow Marilyn Spink: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marilyndspink/  

There’s no one path to career success, and technical skills aren’t everything. This wide-ranging conversation explores the process of building a major program career you can be proud of, and the lifelong learning that makes it possible. Evgenia Jilina, Colliers’ leader of Western Canada transit sector growth, joins Riccardo to talk about industry and life shifts, and the underdiscussed links between the two. 

Their discussion muses over the economic and emotional intensity of Canada’s 2010s P3 boom—its momentum, pressure, and rapid learning curve. They break down how that era of “get stuff done” energy shaped a generation of practitioners and helped set the stage for today’s alliance-style delivery models. The open and honest conversation also tackles two themes that rarely get discussed with enough transparency. Riccardo and Evgenia delve into pursuing continuing education mid-career and the difficult overlap between peak promotion years and the life stage when many professional women consider having children. Evgenia unpacks the “broken rung” dynamic of women in management and her thoughts on the future of leadership in the age of AI. Throughout this companionable dialogue, Evgenia reflects on what it means to stay curious, stretch beyond a job title, and keep learning in an industry that never stops changing.

Key Takeaways

• Thinking back on the highs and learning opportunities of the 2010s P3 boom;
• The road that P3 paved for the development of alliance and collaborative models;
• The effects of life and work experience when returning to school as a professional;
• What the unfortunate timing of the average woman’s career peak and parenting windows costs workplaces;
• AI as a leadership tool, and the very human skills that remain essential.

Quote: 

“When a woman says, ‘My priorities have changed’ after having children, let’s not assume they’ve changed [to be] against their ambition or career.”  - Evgenia Jilina

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com 
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow Evgenia Jilina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ejilina/ 

How is value determined and discussed in infrastructure planning, procurement, and delivery? The Uncharted Conversations panel—Shormila Chatterjee, David Ho, and Melissa Di Marco—tackles a complicated question brought by a new addition: Lisa Mitchell, the President and CEO of the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships (CCPPP). What defines the concept of value? The language behind the vital term has shifted in ways that impact how infrastructure projects are approved, designed, and ultimately judged, a significant issue in the country’s current era of increased building. How do we determine the “right” definition when different players are banking on different results, from the government administrators who approve the project, to the private sector that builds it, to the public, who use it? 

The four panelists reflect on how “value for money” has morphed over the decades, from enduring outcomes to short-term optics, such as cost of capital and debt pricing. Too often, the result is a growing mismatch between what is authorized—time and budget—and what is deemed important in the long term. The conversation asks what it would take to bring outcomes back into focus. Along the way, they float provocative ideas—like an infrastructure “incubator” that funds better concepts upstream—and give a much-needed nod to an undervalued and less marketable component: maintenance, renewals, and deferred capital repairs that don’t come with ribbon cuttings but keep vital public systems functioning.

Key Takeaways

• The factors that have shifted the public and private perceptions of value;
• How looking at financing as the overarching goal rather than a tool narrows the definition of success;
• How public-sector objectives and private-sector delivery incentives can misalign without clear benefit stewardship;
• How “on time and on budget” became a placeholder metric that ignores real-world performance;
• How a public fund that supports big ideas in infrastructure could unlock private innovation as Canada pushes for economic resilience.

Quotes:

“I think the concept of outcome has been completely forgotten.” - David Ho

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com 
• Follow Shormila Chatterjee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shormilac/ 
• Follow David Ho: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtho-ontario/
• Follow Melissa Di Marco: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-di-marco/
• Follow Lisa Mitchell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-mitchell/

How can underground innovation transform the entire infrastructure industry? In Ontario, every contractor and homeowner is required to “call before you dig”, so utilities and other owners of buried gas, electric, fibre optic and sewer lines can flag areas for excavators to avoid. Every inquiry is facilitated by Ontario One Call, though today, 95% of people reach out online, rather than by phone. President and CEO Mitch Panciuk and his team have big plans to take their organization—essential for both safety and uninterrupted services—even further into the digital age.

In this episode, Riccardo and Mitch discuss the inspiration behind Ontario One Call’s ambitious plan to consolidate a province-wide base map. This digital twin, already proven out in places like the UK and Singapore, will reduce the time it takes to complete the million excavation requests Ontario receives each year. Especially as the federal government continues to heavily encourage new infrastructure, an up-to-date, secure, and accessible guide to every underground cable and pipe holds tremendous promise for the future efficiency and cost-savings of major programmes all across Canada. 

Key Takeaways

• The potential improvements to accuracy, workload, and project speed promised by a base map of all buried infrastructure;
• The time-consuming current process of facilitating hundreds of thousands of excavation inquiries;
• How a widespread, standardized collation of underground asset data could benefit the smallest municipalities;
• Why better mapping will change the future of planning and growth projections in Ontario;
• The role AI has to play in the future of excavation workflow automation.

Quote

“2026 is the time that we should start harvesting this data…[and] putting it on a unified base map so that we can use it for generations to come.” -Mitch Panciuk

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com 
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow Mitch Panciuk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-panciuk-c-dir-954a2930/ 

How could Canada—and Ontario in particular—have done rail transit better? Navigating Major Programmes never shies away from the controversial takes. In this episode, Riccardo takes to the mic with multi-disciplinary rail strategist and longtime industry builder Michael Schabas. Their candid, deeply informed conversation delves deep into what has gone awry in Canadian transit planning and what it would take to get it right.

Michael traces his path from a childhood fascination with trains to a career spanning architecture, transport planning, railway operations, and major infrastructure consulting. Along the way, he helped build and lead rail businesses in the UK and Australia, consistently proving that well-run passenger rail can be both high-performing and financially viable. That global experience shapes his perspective on Ontario’s railway decisions. He argues that too many projects have suffered from poor technology choices, weak route selection, and procurement strategies that don’t match the true complexity of this infrastructure solution.

Throughout his conversation with Riccardo, Michael also reflects on what Canadian builders have learned, the reality of Toronto’s ongoing and overdue electrification project, and why high-speed rail is the answer the country too often avoids. This wide-ranging look at rail infrastructure questions long-held assumptions and challenges decision-makers to never stop learning when it comes to public transportation projects.

Key Takeaways

• Recovering from the rushed and ill-informed decision-making that lead to costly transit mistakes;
• The potential for well-run passenger rail to grow ridership and improve financial performance;
• How technology, route, and operating strategy choices shape transit outcomes;
• Why past LRT decisions failed to deliver the speed and rider benefits promised;
• How greenfield thinking and the right corridor strategy could change the future of high-speed rail in Canada.

Quote:

“If you’ve seen one railway, you’ve seen one railway. Every railway’s different.” - Michael Schabas

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com 
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow Michael Schabas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelschabas/   
• Buy Michael’s book, “The Railway Metropolis”: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-railway-metropolis-how-planners-politicians-and-developers-shaped-modern-london/9780727761804.html 

What is it like to navigate the infrastructure industry as a young professional? Finding footing in any field is challenging. Entrants are faced with rapidly changing technologies and processes, hybrid working environments, impostor syndrome, and breaking into existing tight-knit communities. Organizations like Young Leaders in Infrastructure (YLI) strive to help people entering the industry learn, grow, and connect. In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo and Shormilla speak with three members of the Toronto chapter: Mariam Faizal, Ursula Kenkel, and Iris Templo. 

The trio details their experiences with the YLI tenets: developing confidence, capability, and community in the industry. They praise beneficial quarterly events, mentorships, and AI advancement, but raise a unanimous call to action for more accessibility. Their unique and unjaded perspectives highlight where expansion and improvement could elevate infrastructure as younger generations continue to transform Canada’s built environment and the organizations that build it.

Key Takeaways:

• How organizations like YLI assist those entering the industry in finding their place;
• The community-minded motivation that draws graduates from all sectors to public service;
• The need for more accessibility into the clique of established infrastructure professionals;
• A fresh perspective on the ever-growing implementation of AI;
• The ambition of continued collaboration across sectors and specialties.

Quote:

“[YLI provides] a good way of relating to my peers…but also having a good example of where my career can take me.” - Iris Templo

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Learn more about Young Leaders in Infrastructure: https://www.pppcouncil.ca/what-do-we-do/fostering-next-generation/yli 
• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com  
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow Shormila Chatterjee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shormilac/ 
• Follow Mariam Faizal - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariam-faizal-003335157/
• Follow Ursula Kenkel - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ursula-kenkel-2b6397173/
• Follow Iris Templo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/iristemplo/

The Uncharted Conversations series tackles the tough and sometimes controversial questions of the infrastructure industry. This time, Riccardo, David, and Melissa set sail toward benefits realization—why is this seemingly vital component of major programmes so often eclipsed by an overarching focus on time and budget? Shouldn’t the real measure of social project success be the benefits to the public, long after the project is over?

Projects in transit and other asset classes are becoming more complex and interprovincial. The panel considers the need for benefit realization to stay front and centre—superseding capital budget adherence. It is, after all, the outcome least likely to change over often decade-long planning and execution. They look at public reaction to finished projects and consider how that reaction might change should cost–benefit analysis play a larger role from the beginning. Can delivery teams call a project a “win” simply because it’s operational? 

This episode explores the trade-offs decision makers need to weigh (signal priority, car-centric constraints, political palatability, affordability) and how those choices shape the end user experience and media narrative. Along the way, the panel touches on how better incentive design, clearer decision architecture, and more connected suite-of-projects thinking may be necessary over long build lifecycles, in the face of ever-shifting expectations and populations.

Key Takeaways:

• Aligning bidding and design decisions with cost–benefit outcomes to unlock innovation beyond lowest-capital-cost thinking;
• The industry’s struggle to challenge major social infrastructure operating models;
• The vital role of the project sponsor in the balance between intended benefits and inevitable trade-offs;
• The potential for public dissatisfaction regardless of a project’s original business case and outcome;
• How delays, population growth, and rising expectations can erode public tolerance—even if an asset meets its original targets.

Quote:

“Aligning based on the cost–benefit of the project can allow for a little bit more innovation when it comes to bidding on these projects.” - Melissa Di Marco

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Listen to Season 3, Episode 32 on project sponsorship: https://navigatingmajorprogrammes.transistor.fm/s3/72  
• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com  
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow David Ho: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtho-ontario/
• Follow Melissa Di Marco: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-di-marco/

How do proactive dispute resolution pathways improve infrastructure project success? Every major programme has its share of disputes, big or small, and addressing these issues with level heads benefits every party on every project. In this episode, Riccardo sits down with Sahil Shoor, a partner at Gowling WLG who serves as external counsel on a wide range of construction projects. Together, they unpack the role lawyers play in the lifecycle of a project—and why that role is increasingly shifting from “claims at the end” to “resolution during the work.” 

Sahil acknowledges that many disputes aren’t born from bad faith or failed contract drafting—they come from unresolved issues that quietly compound. When teams avoid hard conversations early, the same friction points can echo throughout the project, creating domino effects in schedules, costs, and relationships. Sahil argues that the best results come when projects build credible pathways for raising issues and making timely decisions before situations become adversarial.

Riccardo and Sahil’s conversation digs into governance tools that support dispute avoidance rather than dispute denial: structured “early warning” approaches, clear escalation routes, and dispute boards that introduce neutral expertise before technical problems become existential. The takeaway is clear: the success of any project depends on how proactively risk is managed and disagreements are handled from the outset.

Key Takeaways

• Why unresolved issues cause more conflict than bad drafting or bad faith;
• The nip-in-the-bud benefits of the neutral, expert input of dispute boards;
• Where internal counsel and external counsel add different value during execution;
• The danger of split focus when ignoring disputes until a project is completed;
• How resolution pathways reduce overreliance on “contractual entitlement” thinking.

Quote:

“It is not about avoiding risk but managing risk and managing it intelligently…project counsel is central to that effort.” - Sahil Shoor

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com  
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow Sahil Shoor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shoorsahil/ 

In part two of this deep dive, Riccardo, Emily Moore, Pouya Zangeneh, and Rob Pattison continue unpacking Montreal’s REM (Réseau express métropolitain)—this time zooming in on what the project’s risk decisions reveal about long-term infrastructure delivery.

The group digs into a key point that often gets lost in public conversations about mega-projects: risk doesn’t disappear, it just shifts hands. CDPQ Infra’s willingness to absorb ridership and cost-overrun risk prompts a broader discussion about what it means to plan on a decades-long horizon and why “designing for the bad years” may be a defining feature of resilient infrastructure.

They also discuss the role of regulation and professional judgment: whether success comes from pushing limits or from rethinking policies that no longer serve their intended purposes. They explore how contract structures, interface management, and invested technical expertise on the owner side can influence outcomes more than any single procurement model.

Finally, the panel returns to the big question raised in part one: Is the REM model replicable? The answer requires examining the enabling conditions, including trust, governance, political courage, and public tolerance.

Key Takeaways:

• Why absorbing risk isn’t unique but long-horizon thinking is;
• What happens to contingency planning when owners accept the inevitability of “bad years”;
• The important difference between pushing the limits and reconsidering the rules;
• How looking beyond a single capital line item toward lifecycle outcomes secures project success;
• Why the “stupid owner” model has a tendency to fail and how successful project owners avoid it.

Quote:

“The ​problem ​around ​the ​world…​is ​the ​stupid ​owner ​movement: ‘Pass ​all ​the ​risk ​to the ​contractor. ​Call ​me ​when ​you're ​done.’ It doesn’t work. You ​need ​invested ​experts ​on ​the ​owner ​side.” - Robert Pattison

The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:

• “Montreal’s REM Project: Executive Summary of Replicable Elements”: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PEyOyfVgetRiN8sGJ_07QfM9U7wFcFKo/view?usp=drive_link
• Listen to part 1 of this discussion: https://navigatingmajorprogrammes.transistor.fm/s4/5
• Season 3 panel on Public-Private Partnerships, Part 1: https://navigatingmajorprogrammes.transistor.fm/s3/56;
• Season 3 panel on Public-Private Partnerships, Part 2: https://navigatingmajorprogrammes.transistor.fm/s3/57 
• Follow Navigating Major Programmes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigating-major-programmes/ 
• Read Riccardo’s latest at www.riccardocosentino.com  
• Follow Riccardo Cosentino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosentinoriccardo/ 
• Follow Emily Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-moore-7483311/ 
• Follow Pouya Zangeneh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pouya-zangeneh-00537026/
• Follow Robert Pattison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robsdoor/