In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo sits down with Hannelie Stockenstrom, Senior Vice President Legal Major Projects & Canada Legal Centre Of Excellence at SNC Lavalin, for a in-depth conversation on her experience as a woman in in the male-dominated industry and her hope for the industry as a whole.
Key Takeaways:
- Why diverse participants in infrastructure is the only way forward to solve problems effectively
- How focusing on education in Third World countries can catapult the industry’s sustainability efforts in First World countries
- The art of networking your dream career
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The conversation doesn’t stop here—connect and converse with our community via LinkedIn:
- Riccardo Cosentino
- Hannelie Stockenstrom
Transcript:
Riccardo Cosentino 00:05
You're listening to navigate major problems, the podcast that aims to elevate the conversations
happening in the infrastructure industry and inspire you to have a more efficient approach within it. I'm
your host Riccardo Cosentino I bring over 20 years of major product management experience. Most
recently, I graduated from Oxford University's a business school, which shook my belief when it comes
to navigating major problems. Now it's time to shake yours. Join me in each episode as a press the
industry experts about the complexity of major program management, emerging digital trends and the
critical leadership required to approach these multibillion dollar projects. Let's see where the
conversation takes us. And Ally stockin strong is an accomplished legal professional, and currently
holds the position of Senior Vice President of legal for SNC Lavell ins major project division, and she's
also a member of Canada Legal Center of Excellence of SNC Lavell. And in that capacity Annalee
provides senior management and project team with advice in a wide variety of legal matters, including
claims dispute and transactions. Anna Lee has extensive experience in major projects, national and
international joint ventures, p3, and alternative contracting, and elite monitors and advises management
and operations on legal trends and changes in the law and design implement a compliance program for
managing risk. And the Lee was chair of SNC Lavell in Canada Edna committee from 2020 to 2022.
And she's currently a member and pasture or the steering committee. Hello, welcome back to
navigating major programs. And welcome back to the miniseries of building bridges. Today, I'm here
with Hannelie, I've had the pleasure of working with Hannelie over the last 13 years, while SNC Lavell.
And I'm really excited to ever hear and to ever review on the topic that we covered in building bridges
with money Anna Lee, how you doing today?
Hannelie Stokenstrom 02:14
Hi, Riccardo. I'm great. Thank you. And thank you so much for having me.
Riccardo Cosentino 02:18
It's my pleasure. My pleasure. We talked about ED&I, we talked about diversity. And so I felt you be a
great guest on this podcast, because I think you're a bit passionate about the topic.
Hannelie Stokenstrom 02:29
I think that I am overly passionate sometimes about the topic, Ricardo, and when you get me talking
about it, I can't stop talking about it as you know.
Riccardo Cosentino 02:38
That's great. That's great. So why don't we why don't we just jump into the conversation? This is gonna
be a conversation. And you know, let's maybe just introduce yourself a little bit, we heard your bio, but
you know, what, what's your current role in infrastructure.
Hannelie Stokenstrom 02:54
I'm on the services side, I'm a lawyer, as you know, from my bio, and being with SNC Lavalin, and for
the last 15 years, and always as a lawyer, and currently lead the major projects legal team globally, and
the Canadian regional legal team. And what we do is, we involved on the project side, we are involved
from the RFQ stage, through the RFP, through the negotiation of the contracts, the putting into being
the sub contracts, the joint venture agreement, and then once we get awarded the project, we are the
legal resource and support during the execution of the project. And then, of course, if there are issues
disputes during the course of the project, or subsequently, as the project lawyers, we remain involved in
trying to resolve these disputes. But we are not the litigators, we actually have different lawyers who
deal with the actual dispute resolution. So we project lawyers in the true sense of the word.
Riccardo Cosentino 04:10
Okay, so you're covering, as you said, the service service component or the infrastructure industry,
which is the legal services to these two projects and major projects? Did you as a lawyer, were you
always an infrastructure lawyer, or do you start in a different practice?
Hannelie Stokenstrom 04:28
Now I joined the law firm, both in South Africa where I qualified. And when I emigrated to Canada, I
again went to a law firm, where I've always been involved in construction law, and at least the last 20
years I've been involved in construction law, but a very wide variety on the construction law side. And
the early part of my career. I was actually working in litigation, but I quickly learned that I am Much
more passionate about the front end work and making the deals happen and getting the projects built
rather than dealing with disputes.
Riccardo Cosentino 05:11
And so when you join the law firm, or you're always envisioning that stream, or you just joined
programs, and you ended up following a construction stream, or were you deliberately looking for
Construction Law,
Hannelie Stokenstrom 05:26
I've always been passionate about construction and infrastructure. I love breaches, I think they are
some of the most beautiful things in the world. And coming from South Africa, and having grown up in
Africa, and seen third world countries, and the effect that either good infrastructure or bad infrastructure
have on societies, infrastructure has always been a passion to me. But as I mentioned to you, I love
bridges. And I originally thought that I was going to be an engineer. But I realized that it's not going to
be my my future. So I actually did study a year of engineering at university. And then after that, I
transferred to a commerce degree and after my Commerce degree transferred to low, so I have a little
bit of that passion for engineering in me, but ultimately decided it will be on the service side as opposed
to be on the engineering side.
Riccardo Cosentino 06:29
That's fascinating. I've known you for 13 years, and I'm just learning about this passion of yours already
comes through, but it's good to actually pinpoint that now. It comes from the day to day. So obviously,
you knew you wanted to do so you knew you would end up in this something similar to this industry in
this industry? And and so once you join this industry is anything What was the thing that surprised you
the most about the industry?
Hannelie Stokenstrom 06:57
I think some of the work from ...