A thirst for knowledge: Dr Jim Bentley

Dr Jim Bentley admits he didn’t know that much about Newcastle when he was appointed managing director of Hunter Water in July 2016. "To be honest, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to enjoy it," he says. "Australia is the fourth country I have lived in, without counting the number of actual cities." Fortunately, as with many of his compatriots, the Englishman has quickly fallen for the Novocastrian way of life.

"What’s not to enjoy about the beaches and the weather?" he asks, before revealing the real reason he has been swept off his feet. "You know, for the first time in my life, I haven’t had any traffic problems going to work," he laughs. Considering congestion-prone London, Istanbul and Auckland are among the cities the expert in water infrastructure has called home, it’s easy to imagine how fresh he must arrive at the office every morning after a free-flowing 7-minute commute to work.

But delve beyond the aesthetics and it’s evident that Jim is also relishing the opportunity "to be a part of a city and a region that really has aspirations to grow and develop," as he puts it. "And Hunter Water has a role to play in enabling this vision," he continues.

Pushing the envelope: Beyond compliance

As the primary water and wastewater service provider to the lower Hunter region, to the north of Sydney, the state-owned corporation is responsible for supplying a staggering 184 million litres of water to 600,000 residents on a daily basis. But rather than playing it safe and simply ensuring that networks remain sound, secure and fully operational, Jim has been pushing the envelope since his first day on the job. 

"The NSW Government’s Hunter Regional Plan requires both public and private sectors to contribute to the push towards the Hunter becoming the leading regional economy in Australia. Therefore, we need to be more proactive in terms of partnering with councils and other organisations to counsel on what kind of developments would work from an integrated water management point of view," he explains.

I passionately believe that if we work more closely with our communities, we will achieve better outcomes for them.

This shift towards thought leadership is one that Jim has deliberately sought to introduce as he steers Hunter Water beyond what he sees as a compliance mindset born of the strict governance of the sector in Australia.

"I’ve worked in the water business around the world, including the past 10 years in New Zealand. The obvious differences between the 2 countries is that water, as a business or operation, is much more economically regulated in Australia." Water utilities in New South Wales, he explains, must submit proposals to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal New South Wales (IPART), which then rules on each individually.

"It does mean that the decision on water pricing is one step removed from the water utility," he says, something which he views as both a positive and a negative. "It is liberating and constraining at the same time. But this more regulated environment does mean that, if you are not careful, you can become very compliance focused because your job is to adhere to what regulators are demanding of you." 

"I’m not saying compliance isn’t good, but alone it’s not enough," he says. "Hunter Water must be looking ahead to the way our communities want to live in the future. With the kinds of services we provide, we have an impact on how communities develop, on health, the environment, sustainability, and so on." Jim says he is thriving on the intellectual and cultural challenge that comes from balancing out a compliance mentality in the short term and thought leadership in the long term.

"I think it requires a different management approach and a different culture in the organisation." He is encouraging his team to move away from the black-and-white comfort zone that compliance breeds and embrace "the grey of uncertainty," as he phrases it. "We don’t know what the future is going to hold, so we have to try and anticipate it." Rather than gazing into a crystal ball — Jim definitely doesn’t come across as the type — he emphasises the importance of achieving this through an awareness of and involvement in research, as well as a lot of community engagement.

"We have to be able to combine all of that thinking and sort of plot ourselves a course through what today may look like an uncertain future, but, as you get closer, it obviously becomes much clearer," he says.

Benefitting the community & the environment

In the short time he has been in the role, Jim has been busy establishing strong partnerships with the University of Newcastle and local councils. "Water and liveability are intrinsically linked, so we need to connect with thought leaders from the universities and partner councils to ensure that we are enabling good development that will benefit both the community and the environment," he states. 

"For example, if you have got increasingly densifying urban areas in relatively hot climates, rather than the traditional view of removing waste water in the least harmful way, we need to understand that retaining water in communities actually has multiple benefits and can be seen as a production stream," he explains.

"Some of these include reusing waste water to green the area and make it more liveable in that sense. Waste water can also contribute to urban cooling. Of course, if we can reuse water in a way that takes pressure off the potable water system, we can help optimise future investment. One part of liveability is economic affordability and another is natural enjoyment of the environment," he says. 

Hunter Water must be looking ahead to the way our communities want to live in the future. With the kinds of services we provide, we have an impact on how communities develop, on health, the environment and sustainability.

He concedes that there are obvious challenges from a technology and health point of view (and in certain societies a cultural point of view as well), but Hunter Water is approaching such obstacles in partnership with "other thought leaders around the globe who are also pushing the boundaries in this way of thinking," he says.

Of course, there is another very crucial party in all this: the Hunter community. "I passionately believe that if we work more closely with our communities, we will achieve better outcomes for them." Penning opinion pieces in The Newcastle Herald is just one way he is able "to have a conversation with the community, rather than tell them what we have done or plan to do," he says. Not only does such discourse achieve improved outcomes for the general population, but it also buys valuable money and time. Jim elaborates further:

"As it stands, we need to plan for the future by making decisions in the present. For example, we know that in 15 years or so we will need to outlay several hundred million dollars on additional water sources. But to achieve this we will need to start making recommendations soon. If we plan in conjunction with our community and draw upon innovations, we can push back the decision-making timeline by a number of years. Just imagine what we could do with the time we have gained," he says.

A high level of collaboration

Jim realises that he and his team need to be "wise enough and humble enough to, where appropriate, admit that we don’t actually contain all the knowledge ourselves." He emphasises the enduring importance of local partners such as Hunter H2O, who he says it has "a close working relationship with," to navigate "this new future," as he refers to it. Interestingly, he also views the introduction of competitors to the retail space as a natural, and positive, evolution.

"If others are better placed, particularly in terms of new developments, to deliver great outcomes, then we should be thinking about how we enable that rather than how we resist it. I’m not saying Hunter Water was fighting it in the past, but perhaps we were rather neutral about it instead," he says. 

Partnerships and alliances are recurring themes throughout The CEO Magazine’s conversation with Jim. "There is a much higher level of collaboration between the water utilities here in Australia than anywhere else I have experienced," he says. He suspects the fact that water is state controlled in Australia may play a factor in this, although he doesn’t want that to imply that privatisation precludes the possibility of collaboration. 

"I’ve worked in both the public and private sector and find where I am now to be the most collaborative that I have ever experienced so I think that is really positive," he explains. He talks enthusiastically about a recent research day held at Hunter Water with invited participants from the University of Newcastle, University of Technology Sydney, UCL (University College London) and the University of Auckland, along with Sydney Water and MidCoast Water. 

"From observing the room, I doubt you would have necessarily known which organisations people came from because there was just a very free exchange of ideas and knowledge. I found that really healthy and encouraging given, at the end of the day, we are not trying to grow empires, we are trying to achieve better outcomes for our communities," he says.

Shaping the world

Our conversation may revolve around Jim’s big-picture outcomes, but it is clear that he hasn’t lost sight of the path that will lead him there. "The thing that excites me most from the managing director’s perspective is the change in philosophy of the organisation that enables people to maintain the great quality control we have in place while also allowing the light bulbs to go off in terms of future possibilities."

To get there, he knows he has "to invest heavily in developing the right kind of culture internally," he says. Fortunately, he has years of experience not only in executive management but also in running leadership development programs to draw upon. 

"In CEO positions, there is always this tension between your internal and external focus. I hope I have learned from all the time I have advised others who hold positions like I do now that you cannot underinvest in the culture, the capabilities and the motivation of your team if you want to achieve great results," he says.

"I want to be shaping the world, but I can only do that if I help my people achieve their full potential, which is quite an exciting opportunity."