New Zealand participants

The following are some of the New Zealand-based delegates who have confirmed participation.

Feel free to add your name, company and purpose of attendance by adding to the comments field.

Hon. Richard Worth, Minister of Internal Affairs
HW John Banks, Mayor of Auckland City
HW Stan Semenoff, Mayor of Whangarei

Richard Harris, President, New Zealand Insitute of Architects
Richard has been a director of Jasmax since 1989. He is the current President of the New Zealand Institute of Architects and is past chairman of the Architects Education and Registration Board.
He has taken a lead architectural role in a number of significant projects, including Auckland Townhall and Civic Theatre refurbishment projects, AUT’s Wellesley Campus re-development and masterplanning, the new Auckland City Hospital and the Sylvia Park retail development.
He is currently involved in the Eden Park re-development for the Rugby World Cup. His projects have won numerous architectural and property industry awards.

Kobus Mentz, Director, Urbanismplus
Kobus has extensive urban design experience. For 14 years he has helped set the sustainability agenda in New Zealand and Australia delivering demonstration projects, the first urban national design guide, the national urban design training program, the first spatial growth plans in New Zealand as well as the Melbourne 2030 Growth Strategy for the state of Victoria and 5 local authorities.
His combination of public and private sector work, including several new towns, affords him an informed perspective on how to best facilitate and reconcile their respective objectives. Trained as an architect with post graduate qualifications from the Joint Centre for Urban Design, Oxford, he draws from considerable international experience that reaches across the UK, Australia, Ireland, China and Africa. Urbanismplus regularly receives urban design and planning awards.

Tony van Raat, Head of Department of Architecture, Unitec Institute of Technology
Tony is a fellow of the NZ Institute of Architects, a Special Examiner of the Architects Registration Board (NZ), founder and Secretary of the NZ Architectural Publications Trust, ex-Secretary and ex-President of the Association of Architectural Schools of Australasia and Member of the Cultural Committee of Beni e Cultura in Italy. He is a regular contributor to magazines and periodicals in New Zealand and overseas. Additionally Tony had developed an extensive range of Government approved relationships with universities in China, focussed on the field of architectural education. He works with partners at Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shandong Jianzhu University, Nanchang University and Beijing Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering. Tony has visited China 14 times since 2002 and currently spends about 2 months a year in China teaching.

Tony Jelas, CEO, TR Developments Ltd
Richard Paris, Director, TR Developments Ltd
Oliver North, CEO, North Holdings Ltd
North Holdings and TR Developments are jointly preparing the re-zoning of a large property at Marsden Point with the support of the Whangarei District Council to form a New Town Centre that has been designed around the ‘LEED’ standards for city sustainablity. The Town Centre area and the surrounding residential land will eventually cater for a population of 40,0000 persons.

TR Developments developed the early stages of La Pointe Beach Estates residential golf course that is now completed and highly successful. North Holdings are currently developing a large industrial property at Marsden and have presold stages 1 and 2 of this project.

Rodney McVicar, Managing Director, Buildpro
Buildpro is a major New Zealand exporter of lumber and wood panel products including plywood and medium density fibreboard. Buildpro specialises in FSC certified and carbon certified wood products. Please see our website http://www.buildpro.net for more details or contact me directly at rodney.mcvicar@buildpro.net

Paul Bowker, Tauranga
I am a property developer/hotel owner situated in Tauranga. I have secured the largest tract of commercial land in Tauranga City Centre and am in the process of finalising the contracts and design (a $120mil development ). I completed my MBA in August 2008 and my thesis subject discussed what makes a building truly sustainable. My interest in the forum is therefore to meet with not only likeminded people but to develop contacts which may be mutually advantageous with regard to development opportunities. I trust that this forum will open new avenues for both me and other sustainable development opportunities.

Dr Christopher Tremewan, Vice-President (International), University of Auckland.
Christopher established the New Zealand Centre at Peking University, set up cooperation in the commercialization of technology between Tsinghua and Auckland universities. The University of Auckland is actively engaged with many of the top universities in China in fields including environmental science, ecological management, engineering, sustainable architecture, water systems, and energy.

Michael Field, Sustainability Manager, North Shore City Council
I look after all sustainability aspects of North Shore City and was an establishing member of the New Zealand Green Building Council and responsible for designing the Green Star assessment tool.

Dominic Ong, Director, Private Client Group, CB Richard Ellis
Dominic is highly regarded as a commercial real estate expert, specialising in the Auckland CBD. He is proud to work for CB Richard Ellis, the world’s largest commercial real Estate Services provider, a company backed by the most comprehensive marketing resources the industry offers, giving broad exposure to both local and international investors.

Chong du Cheng, Managing Director, Equinox Capital Limited
Equinox Capital Limited is involved in investment in property, property lending, property management and property development. Chong has close associations with a network of key and prominent New Zealanders in business and government where he is able to match investor requirements in almost every type of business to help the immigrant and overseas investors obtain the maximum returns from their New Zealand, and overseas investments.

Lily Zhang, Director of  Vermillion Group
Lily is the director of  Vermillion Group, a leading Auckland property development company. She is also the director of Everest Finance & Investment Ltd and General Manager and co-founder of Sage Realty Limited.  Lily has extensive experience in finance and property industry, and a columnist for New Zealand Chinese Herald. Her investment insights are highly regarded by the local Chinese community.

Carol Neill, Senior Research Officer, Institute of Public Policy, AUT University
The Institute leads an international collaborative research programme into economic and social development in metropolitan cities throughout the Asian and Pacific region. This programme has been developed in partnership with the China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong (CELAP; China’s elite training academy) and with East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai (ECUST). Work into the first phase of this programme culminated in the Asia Pacific Metropolitan Development Forum which was held at CELAP in November last year, involving all 15 of the research groups from throughout the Asia Pacific region, as well as 50 mayors from cities across China. Carol is interested in participating in this Forum to hear from others about ideas and strategies for developing business opportunities between New Zealand and China, and to join the discussions on New Zealand business interaction and working relationships with China.

James Chan, International Sales Director, Bayleys Real Estate Ltd
James Chan has been with Bayleys Real Estate for 20 years, during which time he has sold more than $600 million worth of property. He was the top National commercial salesperson at Bayleys in 2008. He has consistently been one of Bayleys’ top performing sales agents and has been a winner of both Bayleys and Real Estate Institute Sales Person of the year awards in 1993, 1996 and 2004 for excellence in commercial property sales.

Edward Poh (  傅子才 ) , Director, Vivaldi Group
Edward Poh is a professional engineer involved in design, project management, marketing and financial control of all types of business activities in numerous Asia-Pacific countries. He is experienced in developing JV Companies, being GM of the first JV Company between the governments of China and Singapore. Edward’s businesses are currently in property development, construction management and international tourism.

Peter Jennings, Sales Manager, Realties Property Brokers
Peter Jennings is a specialist in Industrial, Commercial and Residential Development.