Chair
Yana Averianova
Vice Chair
Joy Chen
Secretary
Vincent Selvakumar
Treasurer
Canute Chandrakumaran
Committee Members
Remi Cruz
Zaid Essa
Hon Wei Ng
Sreekanth Vidhyadharan
Mohammed Zeeshan Kazi
Marlon de Guzman
Paola Albarracin
Roshni Godfrey Menacheri
Benjamin Orpilla
Husain Shabbir Gadia
Badal Shingavi
Chair – Yana Averianova
Yana is a qualified mechanical and civil engineer with an overall working experience about 10 year in Russia and New Zealand. Yana immigrated to New Zealand in 2010 sand has been with SIGIE since 2017. She is very passionate about helping others to settle in NZ via sharing her experience.
Vice Chair – Joy Chen
Joy immigrated to New Zealand in 2000 as a water engineer with a hydrology degree and got her master’s degree in geography information system (GIS) at University of Auckland 2004. Currently Joy is a digital solution lead in a large international engineering consulting firm-GHD and leads a location intelligence team in NZ to deliver digital solutions on various engineering projects. Joy has been with SIGIE since 2015, she is also volunteering for New Zealand Asia Association and NZ Esri User Group currently. Joy is very passionate to help immigrant engineers to settle in NZ through sharing experiences on culture challenging with the SIGIE family together.
Secretary – Vincent Selvakumar
Vincent is a Mechanical engineer with 8 years of overall experience in India And New Zealand. He is currently working as a Passive Fire Engineer in a Fire engineering consultancy based in Auckland. When not working, he is actively involved in sports & volunteering. As a part of the SIGIE committee since 2019, he is passionate about helping SIGIE members gain employment and widen their professional network.
Treasurer – Canute Chandrakumaran
Canute came to New Zealand in late 80’s, and understands the challenges of immigrant engineers finding their first professional job. He has undergraduate degree from India and a Masters from University of Canterbury. He is also a Charted Professional Engineer, with experience in private and government consultancies. He believes that immigrant engineers provide for their families and contribute to NZ economy despite facing significant hurdles. His passion includes developing training and mentoring programmes targeting engineering industry to deliver optimum engineering competency. He joined SIGIE to help the immigrant engineers finding their first professional job.
Committee Members
Committee Member – Remi Cruz
Remi is a professional engineer with over 40 years’ experience
gained while working in the Philippines, Brunei, New Zealand and
Australia. He has multiple engineering degrees gained from
universities in Manila and Auckland. He is also registered as
Chartered Member, Chartered Professional Engineer, and
International Professional Engineer with Engineering NZ, in
addition to being a Practice Area Assessor. Since migrating to
New Zealand in 2003, he has volunteered for Migrant Action
Trust, Manukau Institute of Technology, and Engineering NZ.
Remi is currently with Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency leading
the delivery of significant transport infrastructure projects while
pursuing his passion for coaching and mentoring young
professionals.
Committee Member – Zaid Essa
Professional Project/Programme Manager and Engineer, with over 20 years of experience in investigation, designing, consenting, land acquisition and construction, and in working with various capital and infrastructure projects. I’ve been volunteering with SIGIE and supporting international Engineers in New Zealand since 2009. Currently I am the Team Leader for Auckland’s Project Delivery (Transportations) team for WSP.
Committee Member – Hon Wei Ng
Graduated with a bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering and a master’s in Engineering Science. He joined the materials research as a Research Assistant in NZ in 2020. His involvement in SIGIE started as a volunteer at an event in 2019 shortly after his arrival in NZ. He relish his role in SIGIE and his passion for the work with SIGIE has only grown since then.
Committee Member – Sreekanth Vidhyadharan
Sreekanth is currently working as Investigation and Design Manager for North and West with Auckland Transport (AT). His team ensures the successful delivery of the design phase of major capital projects in AT.
Sreekanth is originally from India. He came to NZ in 2014 to complete his Master in Transportation Engineering. Since then, he worked R&D consultants, a Wellington based company before joining Waitakere City Council, then amalgamating to Auckland Transport in 2010. Sreekanth said, “Auckland is what I call home now. I joined Waitakere City Council as an engineer and gradually progressed to my current role. When I came to NZ for studies. I couldn’t find any organisation giving a helping hand to migrants and hence now I feel proud to be part of this voluntary organisation to offer help to fellow members to successfully settle in NZ”.
Committee Member – Vinay Karanam
Graduated in the year of 2008 in Mechanical Engineering as Major and Joined R&D centre in the area of Development and Growth in Projects of Renewable Energy Systems. He subsequently completed Masters and earned multiple doctoral degrees in the field of Mechanical Engineering. He was working on Renewable Energy systems like Solar and BioGas in Engineering Division in Mumbai when he resigned in Jan 2020. From Feb 2020, Vinay moved to NZ and worked as Project Manager for a Google Project. From Oct 2020, he has been working as Chief Technology Officer for Waka RideShare LLC and is a Director of Earth and Energy Innovations Ltd.
Committee Member – Mohammed Zeeshan Kazi
Mohammed Zeeshan pursued his graduate degree in Architecture from Mumbai University in 2016 and worked as an Architect, Green building evaluator, and Assistant Lecturer for 3 years. Zeeshan believes that the built environment is an interdisciplinary and collective effort to respond to modern needs, urges him to be a keen researcher, and draws delicate responsiveness within his practice and pedagogy. He subsequently completed a Master’s in the field of Construction Management from the University of Auckland with his research work focusing on IPD and Construction Contracts. He is presently working as a Regulatory support officer at Auckland Council.
Commitee Member – Marlon de Guzman
Marlon is a Structural Engineer with 17+ years of experience in design and construction. He migrated to New Zealand in 2012 from the Philippines where he finished his Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering (2003) and Master’s degree in Structural Engineer (2009), last year (2020) he finished his Master in Geotechnical Engineering at Auckland University. He is currently working in Harrison Grierson Consulting Ltd as Structural Team Leader and has a passion of helping people to improve by mentoring and sharing his experience. Marlon is also one of the newest member of the SIGIE committee.
Committee Member – Paola Albarracin
Paola is a Colombian experienced and dedicated Environmental Engineer, Scientist and Technician, and passionate about using my skills, knowledge, and experience to enable society to sustainably manage the environment. She strongly believes in focusing on the prevention and resolution of environmental problems that face industries and communities.
Fully conversant with assessing environmental effects and monitoring water quality, air quality, fresh water, and biodiversity management. I offer experience both in New Zealand and internationally.
Also, she would like to share the positive impact she had with the Employment Workshop placed in August 2020 by SIGIE group: With Natalia Bulyutina’s participation in her successful job seeker case and Mr Remi Cruz’s intervention about his lessons learned during 40-year career journey, their blow up my mind and encourage me to have the decision and start with the enrolment process in a Master of Engineering Studies in Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland. Now she is very grateful to have the opportunity of being part of the SIGIE committee and meet such inspiring people.
Committee Member – Roshni Godfrey Menacheri
Graduated with Bachelor’s of Technology in Civil Engineering and Post Graduation in Quantity Surveying from India. Worked as an Estimator for 2 years in India. Came to New Zealand to pursue Graduate Diploma in Engineering (Highways). Joined SIGIE to help the struggling Immigrant Engineers in New Zealand who facing a similar situation as me. Believes in working together and supporting each other for better growth.
Committee Member – Benjamin Orpilla
Benjie works as a transport infrastructure Asset Manager in the Wellington Region. He works in the asset information management and tactical/operational asset management space specialising in maintenance programme development, data analytics and modelling. He has a background in roading engineering, surveying, GIS and remote sensing with over 10 years of experience in New Zealand.
Committee Member – Husain Shabbir Gadia
Husain graduated as a civil engineer from Mumbai university in 2010. Throughout his career, he was involved in managing the construction of some of Mumbai’s tallest residential buildings. He believes that the intricate nature of construction projects necessitates implementing proper project management processes for project success. He obtained his PMP certification in 2015 and completed his master’s in engineering project management in 2020 from the University of Auckland. He is currently working with Napier City Council as an Associate Project Manager.
He aims to continue his research in developing a framework of critical success factors in property development projects to help developers complete their projects successfully along with his ambition of becoming a portfolio manager.
Committee Member – Badal Shingavi
A Civil Engineer/Aspiring project manager wanting to connect with people who had a similar journey in this country. Apart from work, I like playing badminton and outdoor activities. Here to learn form others and their journeys as well as share mine to help the new ones in theirs.