Speakers & Panelists

Ujwal Lakra - Associate / Advisory team - MBM

Ujwal is an Associate in the MBM Advisory team who has 12 years’ post-graduate experience and qualifications in engineering and asset management and provides strategic asset planning and management services specifically related to property, facilities management and infrastructure across government (local, state and federal), arts and culture, education, social housing, utilities, airports, defence, health and heavy industries focusing on facilities management and maintenance, asset life-cycle strategy and planning, functional reviews and business case development.

Ujwal has a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) and Bachelor of Finance degrees from the University of Adelaide. He is also a Senior Practitioner in Asset Management – from the Asset Management Council and a Senior Principal in Asset Management – from the World Partners in Asset Management (as part of the Global Certification Scheme). Ujwal has received his MIEAust CPEng (Asset Management and Leadership and Management) NER and APEC Engineer Register and the Register of International Professional Engineers and is currently pursuing a Master of Corporate Real Estate (MCR) with CoreNet Global.

Ujwal frequently presents at conferences on asset and facilities management and has guest lectured at the University of Sydney Core Advanced Unit, DESC9194 Asset and Facility Management, as part of post graduate coursework for Certificate in Architectural Science (FM), and has presented at many conferences including AMPEAK and the Local Government and Public Sector Building Maintenance and Facilities Management Conference.

  Nicholas Burt - CEO - Facility Management Association of Australia

Nicholas Burt is CEO of the Facility Management Association of Australia (FMA). He has over 20 years’ leadership experience, including appointments at the senior executive level within the community services and facility management sectors for both NGOs and local government. His roles have covered the entire spectrum of policy development and planning, program implementation and management. During his time with the FMA, Nic’s commitment to improving process has helped to drive industry development and deliver high-quality services to stakeholders in the facilities management sector. Nic also chairs the Standards Australia technical committee MB-022, Facilities Management, the acting stakeholder chair of the NABERS steering committee, and was involved in the development of the new ISO standards for facilities management. 

 Gehan Palipana - Sustainability Advisory Manager - Cushman & Wakefield

Gehan is a corporate sustainability professional with 11 years of experience providing environmental and supply chain sustainability advice to clients across the banking and finance, telecommunications and insurance sectors. Gehan is based in Brisbane and manages Cushman & Wakefield’s Australian sustainability advisory and engineering and optimisation teams.

Gehan joined Cushman & Wakefield in 2018 as the sustainability advisor for the National Australia Bank account and worked across a number of client engagements before taking on the senior sustainability advisor role for the Suncorp account.

Prior to returning to Cushman & Wakefield, Gehan was a senior sustainability specialist at Telstra, responsible for Telstra Group’s environmental sustainability disclosures and regulatory reporting, setting Telstra’s Science Based Target (SBT) for decarbonisation and achieving Australia’s largest Climate Active Carbon neutral certification for Telstra at an organisation level and for a number of its products and services.

 Tica Masuku - Human Geographer & Workplace Strategy Manager - Charter Hall

Tica Masuku is a Human Geographer & Workplace visionary at Charter Hall, one of Australia’s leading property groups. As Charter Hall’s Workplace Strategy Manager, Tica applies her social science expertise to enable the co-creation of human-centred workplace solutions with Charter Hall’s partners and tenant customers. Qualified as a human geographer, Tica also focuses on identifying and forecasting global workplace trends, providing a unique perspective on future-ready workplaces through the lens of the current and future domestic and global operating environments.