Advisory team role brings forensic focus to multimillion-dollar projects 

Senior Advisor Jeanne Zhang has worked at RSK Group company SJA in Australia since 2019 and has developed a satisfying career that she finds to be rich with opportunities, challenges and variety. 

Jeanne’s daily work presents her with opportunities for constant learning but she has also taken advantage of training opportunities. The foundation for her career was a degree in civil and industrial engineering in Shanghai and Jeanne went on to complete a master’s in project management at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. 

SJA’s advisory division provides commercial and advisory support to construction clients. Commercial support, Jeanne’s area of expertise, involves managing the procurement and variations processes along with any disputes between parties. As a senior advisor, Jeanne provides commercial support, quantum analysis and reporting for projects in the building and infrastructure sector. 

“SJA currently comprises 50 people, with 20 working in the advisory team. I am based in Sydney and have colleagues in Melbourne, New Zealand, Singapore and Queensland. As a member of the SJA advisory team, I provide a comprehensive range of services to construction projects. This can be anything from commercial support for a live project to assisting in preparing an independent expert report, such as a quantum assessment of delay costs and variation claims. 

A typical day for Jeanne involves checking her emails first thing before planning for the day ahead, but aside from that, she says that no single day is ever the same as the next. 

“Every few weeks a new job comes in, so there’s always a need for constant and rapid learning. I jump between jobs as required while waiting for additional information. There’s lots of collaboration and meetings because most jobs that come our way are multimillion-dollar projects. They are huge in scale and need a team to match. I often work with colleagues within other areas of SJA, such as the programming, planning and project management teams. 

“Lots of reading is required for me to do my job effectively. I call it forensic investigation. It involves the gathering, understanding and analysis of all the information and evidence, even though some of the information does not directly relate to the task I’m dealing with. However, the bigger the picture I have, the more accurate and reasonable assessment of claims I can provide. 

“I’m working on a few projects at the moment, including one on a public arts convention centre, which requires us to provide an assessment of the cost of delays. I am responsible for checking the contract, gathering information on the actual cost and time delay and calculating the cost of the delay in monetary terms. I also have to determine who is responsible for the delay, who is entitled to financial claims/reimbursement and if they are entitled, how much they’ll get.” 

Jeanne said that the job isn’t without its challenges, but working at SJA has offered her lots of opportunities. 

“The role is unpredictable. When I used to be on-site on construction projects, I’d be involved in day-to-day work and know every detail of what was going on but advisory work is the complete opposite. We take a higher level view, which can be challenging, and it took some time for me to feel confident and trust that I had the knowledge and experience to put forward an assessment on the matter at hand. 

“However, despite these challenges, I really enjoy the variety of my job and find it interesting. When a new job comes in, you start from scratch, and you have to get familiar with the project in a very short period. I’ve also been given lots of training opportunities to assist in my career development, worked with experts from other countries and had the chance to work on international matters through RSK Global Experts. 

“I see huge opportunities coming from across the RSK Group, and specifically from RSK Global Experts, and I look forward to being involved in what’s to come.”