Dr. Penny Burns

Chair at Talking Infrastructure Association, Inc.
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
Contact: penny@talkinginfrastructure.com

Dr. Penny Burns is the Chair of Talking Infrastructure Association Inc, a non-profit set up to help infrastructure decision-makers (i.e. middle and senior management and their advisors in infrastructure agencies) anticipate future policy change and be ready to meet it. She is the curator of the Association’s website and blog “Talking Infrastructure – Learning from Emerging Futures” and Co-Host of the Association’s podcast “Talking Infrastructure – Ideas that matter” (now in development.) For 20 years she was Editor and Publisher of AMQ International’s ‘Strategic Asset Management’, a fortnightly bulletin for policy makers and practitioners in public sector asset management.

She was also the asset management representative on the Foresight Advisory Committee for Suez Environment, Paris; a foundation board member of the Asset Management Council; and a board member of a number of infrastructure providers in the energy, water and gas sectors. Her asset management experience includes direct Ministerial and Parliamentary review and advice. Her presentation to the World Bank led it to commission a review of asset management practices in local government, worldwide and her report on Asset Management informed the UK central government’s asset management approach.

She has published widely in asset management and is an international public speaker. She has been commissioned to provide papers and projects for governments across the world. Penny was the foundation director of the Australian Centre for Experimental Economics at the University of Adelaide and developed the method, adopted by the Australian federal government, for evaluating the social and economic impact of special events.