Our team
Executing our mission requires the expertise, authority, political nous and community outreach to catalyse transformative policy reform. Our team remains independent, avoids early judgment and stays open to multiple perspectives in highly contested, values-driven policy domains. We have a solid track record of project delivery and management.
Our team comprises skilled mediators, and knowledgeable and independent facilitators of policy change able to engage stakeholders and experts in the design of practical policy solutions. We engage our stakeholders in a clear and consistent way, and act with honesty, humility, optimism, impartiality and rigour.
Watertrust Australia is located at the Australian Academy of Science for an initial period of at least five years. This will help us engage with deep expertise from a wide range of disciplines. We are open to working with all of Australia’s learned academies.
Our staff
Kane Aldridge
Interim CEO
Kane has extensive experience in facilitating partnerships between government, industry and academia for addressing complex water management challenges. Kane joined Watertrust Australia from the Goyder Institute for Water Research, where he was Director and successfully developed it as a leading collaborative water research partnership within Australia.
Rod Marsh
Director | Strategy & Programs
Rod has over 20 years’ experience as a public-sector policy advisor and manager, and private-sector consultant. He has worked on a wide range of complex challenges across public sector governance, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and energy transitions.
Amanda Wealands
Principal
Amanda brings over 15 years of experience in waterway restoration, management and assessment, and is leading the development of the evaluation framework for Watertrust Australia.
Peter Horne
Principal
Peter has a background in environmental and agricultural sciences with experience in partnership brokering, often in complex contexts. Before joining Watertrust Australia, Peter spent 25 years working in the Indo-Pacific region on strengthening agricultural livelihood systems that are being challenged by major shifts in the natural resource base, climate and markets.
Adam Lee
Partnerships & Projects Manager
Adam has over 10 years' experience supporting senior government leaders, across a broad range of roles in strategy, governance, project management and team facilitation.
Kate Peake
Principal (North)
Kate Peake is phasing into her role at Watertrust and is also currently CEO of Regional Development Australia Northern Territory. She is also the NT Farmers Treasurer and Public Officer, and Chair of the NT Farmers Water Reference Group.
A 'proud Territorian' and NT Rural Woman of the Year in 2017, Kate's strengths are in building relationships and making connections.
Our bespoke teams
We harness considerably more capacity and capability to meet the demands of the sector through expanded bespoke teams of partners for specific projects. A list of the contracts and consultancies since establishment is provided here twice a year.