Ms Anita Curnow

Anita Curnow completed her Civil Engineering degree at Monash University in 1993 and studied part time to complete her Master of Engineering Science (Coursework and Minor Thesis) in 1999.  She was awarded Alumna of the Year for Monash Civil Engineering and named among the Top 50 Public Sector Women in 2017.

While she started her career in the private sector, by 1997 Ms Curnow was working for the state government, which was the start of a 23-year career across the Department of Infrastructure, VicRoads and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP).  For most of this time, she was in executive roles, and in 2014 she was promoted to a position on the Senior Leadership Team at VicRoads.

Through her career in state government, Ms Curnow worked in roles in strategic planning including bus and tram planning, setting policy and writing technical guidelines, managing business case preparation and funding oversight of programs.

From 2016, Ms Curnow oversaw the day-to-day operation of the road network and liaising with Big Build agencies on their impact on road users during construction, at the same time as having responsibility for the road safety policy areas for drivers and vehicles and leading the heavy vehicle enforcement functions that were at that time a state responsibility.

In 2019 Ms Curnow moved to DELWP, undertaking fixed term roles, immersed in planning for bushfires with responsibility for the forest roads, fleet, air services, information technology and logistics for firefighting of forest fires and then the policy and planning associated with forests, fire and emergency management.

In late 2020, Ms Curnow decided to make a move to local government, and has been Director of City Infrastructure at Merri-bek City Council for the last three years.  There she has expanded her leadership to include capital project delivery for community and civil assets, waste services, enforcement, animal management, open space and transport strategy and maintenance of local roads, fleet and open space.  Her 350 staff include outdoor workers as well as civil engineers with specialities ranging from transport to drainage to roads to project management.

One of Ms Curnow’s proudest achievements in her career was taking part in a cultural transformation at VicRoads involving tackling the very low numbers of female engineers being promoted through the ranks into leadership roles, and especially executive roles.  As part of an overall program of increasing the number of women in leadership, she mentored six women and appointed several women into executive roles for the first time, including several engineers.