{"id":16991,"date":"2026-01-12T12:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T11:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isleutilities.com\/?post_type=executive-exchange&p=16991"},"modified":"2026-01-12T12:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T11:30:17","slug":"ep-62our-first-year-highlights-unwrapped","status":"publish","type":"executive-exchange","link":"https:\/\/isleutilities.com\/it\/executive-exchange\/ep-62our-first-year-highlights-unwrapped\/","title":{"rendered":"EP 62: Our First-Year Highlights Unwrapped"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Piers Clark reflects on year one with Jo Burgess, pulling out a set of clips that show the range of \u201cfront lines\u201d utilities are now operating on. You can explore the full episodes mentioned at the links below:<\/span><\/p>\n

Mykolaiv, Ukraine \u2013 running a city under fire<\/a><\/strong>
\nMayor Oleksandr Syenkevych describes waking to find trunk mains deliberately blown up in three separate locations\u2014a visceral account of operating critical infrastructure in an active conflict zone and restoring service when the network has literally been attacked.<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nSlums and Favelas: Philippe de Roux and \u201cBetter With Water\u201d<\/a><\/strong>
\nPhilippe de Roux explains how Better With Water supplies water to slums and favelas in low-income countries where conventional utilities avoid service due to collection risk and operational difficulty. His organisation has built a model that is both socially embedded and financially disciplined.<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nLas Vegas, USA \u2013 22 years of drought on the Colorado River<\/a><\/strong>
\nDoa Ross\u00a0from the Southern Nevada Water Authority explains what a multi-decade drought looks like in practice: less inflow, changing hydrology, and the reality that this is no longer a \u201csupply problem\u201d alone but a long-term\u00a0demand and operations management challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cape Town, South Africa \u2013 using \u201cDay Zero\u201d as a pivot point<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mike Webster\u00a0reflects on how crisis provided political and public cover for accelerating water reuse schemes, restructuring the utility with a stronger commercial focus, and increasing collection rates and revenues by ~20%, enabling up to a fourfold increase in capital investment. It’s a clear case study in not wasting a good crisis.<\/p>\n

Bucaramanga, Colombia \u2013 maintaining trust after restrictions<\/a><\/strong>
\nNatasha Avenda\u00f1o\u00a0took a city into severe restrictions just six days after stepping into the CEO role. Crucially, when restrictions were lifted a year later, customers didn’t bounce back to old habits; consumption remained below expected levels, showing how behaviour can shift when communication and trust are handled well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iberian Peninsula \u2013 grid failure as a real-time stress test<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nuno Br\u00f4co\u00a0from Aguas do Tejo Atlantico\u00a0(Portugal) unpacked a voltage disturbance that escalated into system-wide power loss across Spain and Portugal. His key takeaways: test extreme scenarios in advance to discover failures you’d never spot on paper, don’t assume mobile phones solve communication, and use incidents to diagnose, prioritise and implement resilience measures.<\/p>\n

Kangaroo Island, Australia \u2013 bushfires and staff resilience<\/a><\/strong>
\nDavid Ryan, Chief Executive at SA Water, ttook on the role weeks before the Kangaroo Island bushfires. His focus landed on people: staff commitment and organisational culture showing its true face when things go badly wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barwon Water, Australia \u2013 embedding First Nations values<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Shaun Cumming\u00a0shares how Barwon Water is reshaping organisational values around First Nations principles through cultural awareness training, a “Leading Through a Cultural Lens” programme for executives, and embedding “Caring for Country” principles in business cases. This is resilience through identity and values, not just infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh, USA \u2013 going beyond the legal boundary on lead<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Will Pickering\u00a0explains Pittsburgh\u2019s lead replacement programme,\u00a0which includes customer-owned lead service lines, not just utility-owned assets. It cost more and carried legal risk, but was recognised as the right public health decision.<\/p>\n

Pakistan \u2013 rebuilding at 50,000 homes a month<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Khalid Mehmood\u00a0describes a post-flood rebuilding programme delivering 50,000 homes per month, with 20,000+ people trained to reconstruct their own homes and 99% of families entering a bank for the first time. Only once basic shelter was secured could large-scale water and sanitation investments be unlocked.<\/p>\n

Honolulu, USA \u2013 the Red Hill fuel spill<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

With 20 underground tanks each holding around 12.5 million gallons sitting just 100 feet above critical aquifers, the Red Hill Fuel Spill is a textbook example of the interdependence of defence, fuel infrastructure and drinking water security.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":14899,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"class_list":["post-16991","executive-exchange","type-executive-exchange","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEP 62: Our First-Year Highlights Unwrapped | Isle Utilities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Our First-Year Highlights Unwrapped\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/isleutilities.com\/it\/executive-exchange\/ep-62our-first-year-highlights-unwrapped\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"it_IT\" 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