Ashurst debuts infrastructure, places and capital projects advisory offering

Ashurst has debuted a new infrastructure, places and capital projects advisory offering to be led by a group of new partners.

Matthew Dunn, Cameron Jaggers and Ben Rooke will spearhead the new team, which is an expansion of the firm’s risk advisory capabilities. The infrastructure, places and capital projects advisory practice will integrate strategic policy, commercial advisory and project risk advisory to provide guidance throughout a project lifecycle. This offering complements Ashurst’s projects and energy transition team.

Dunn brings two decades of experience in infrastructure and property. He focuses on complex projects, public-private partnerships and private financing. He is an expert on the NSW government's capital programme, where he helped drive large-scale infrastructure projects and related transactions.

Prior to joining Ashurst, he headed up the infrastructure and project finance team at Transport for NSW.

Jaggers comes in with more than 20 years of experience in portfolio, project management design and assurance, and auditing and risk management across the health, rail, road, and energy sectors. He has worked with the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority in Victoria, Cross River Rail, Transport and Main Roads, nbn, NSW Energy Corporation, Snowy Hydro 2.0, Sydney Metro, and Queensland Rail.

He hails from PwC, where he was an Integrated Infrastructure partner.

Rooke has tackled major investment cases, complex large-scale property and infrastructure transactions, and strategic infrastructure plans. He took on senior executive roles in the NSW and WA governments, including as an executive director for commercial transactions in the NSW Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade.

Meanwhile. Sonia Haque-Vatcher is set to be the new lead partner of Ashurst Risk Advisory's data and analytics team. She brings over 20 years of experience in large-scale technology transformation and risk management projects across the financial services, life sciences, consumer, and retail sectors. Before the move to Ashurst, she was a senior executive at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and helmed a global data and analytics team.

“Infrastructure and data and analytics have been strong areas of client demand since Ashurst established the Ashurst Risk Advisory business in 2020, as digitalisation, sustainability, increased scale of infrastructure projects and economic volatility give rise to greater regulatory scrutiny and demand for expertise-led models of legal-led risk and commercial advisory capabilities”, said Jamie Ng, Ashurst's chief client officer and global divisional leader for consulting. “The launch of the infrastructure, places and capital projects advisory offering and the appointment of four new partners reflects significant and ongoing shifts in development of our cities and the infrastructure supporting them”.