People
Matt
Allen
Director
A Privilege to Influence the Future
Warm, thoughtful, wise, and considerate. These are the impressions you get from Matt when you first meet him. He is a passionate Cantabrian who has been through thick and thin. Wading around in earthquake rubble with civil defense officials and making calls about his beloved city and heritage buildings which had to come down wasn’t easy. To come through the joys and sadness of managing many significant projects in the Christchurch rebuild, you need to be made of the right stuff. “I felt privileged that I could do my job and help my community at the same time.”
“Waren Warfield, one of RCP’s founders, often said, ‘We don't build buildings, we build relationships.’ What I've learned over more than 18 years with RCP confirms that. It’s about building a community, a culture, and relationships. You must make decisions in an atmosphere of trust, which takes a long time to build.”
RCP’s reputation has essentially been built in the region around civic jobs. Dunedin’s new hospital project, for which Matt is the lead Director, is the single biggest hospital ever built in New Zealand at a cost of over $1.5 billion. More recently, Matt has stepped back from regional management to focus on key projects and relationships throughout the South Island and the further development of RCP's business. It’s a more strategic role that includes building the succession plan.
"I'd like to think we share the agenda with the client as to what's important in the betterment of the project. Grievances are always aired and resolved respectfully by the teams at RCP; it's too small a country and we like to do business with friends.”
Matt’s leadership role in the blueprint for the recovery of Christchurch allowed him to influence and contribute to New Zealand’s most important urban planning project in living memory.
“It was undertaken in a high-pressure environment to successfully execute the strategy with multiple stakeholders in both urban and building typologies. No mean feat amidst a sea of bureaucracy and politics.”
