Meet Narelle Monaghan, Executive Director, Bus Procurement, Greater Sydney

Narelle’s making sure that the transition of our bus operations go as smoothly and successfully as possible.

Tell us a bit about the role and what you’d like to achieve in the time you’re in this role.

I’m leading the procurement activity for the three remaining State Transit operated bus contracts and re-tender of the current privately operated bus regions, except Region 6, as we call on world-leading public transport operators to bid for the contracts.

We will achieve the successful transition of bus operations, which means:

  • our customers get better bus services (which includes me and my family!) and we give them even more reason to get out of their cars
  • our people get great opportunities
  • we generate efficiencies that we can reinvest into more services
  • we set ourselves up for transition to a zero emission bus fleet.

What’s your biggest achievement to date?

I can’t claim anything just for myself – there is nothing I’ve done that hasn’t been supported by a team, either at work or at home. The achievements I’m most proud of are those where teams have delivered the unexpected and overcome huge odds, and I am constantly amazed by how much a good team can do with so little! The closest I can come to claiming something purely as my own achievement is running some pretty long ultramarathons but even that required my family as support crew,and a very good massage therapist...

What excites you most about your role and team?

I’m excited by the opportunity to make a real difference to my favourite city in the world. I am also humbled when I think about how many people are impacted by what we deliver, which include customers, drivers, other road users and people who breathe the air that diesel buses pollute! So this really is a chance to improve lives. My team isn’t just the dedicated specialists that have come together to work fulltime on this, but rather it is made up of all the expertise we will need to call on from across Transport. I’m really excited to see us working together the way Evolving Transport has been designed to let us.