Information Pack

McConnell Dowell is a founding member of Amotai, a supplier diversity organisation with a large and growing network of verified Māori and Pasifika-owned businesses. Amotai provides these businesses with connections to buyers who recognise the added social value buying from Māori and Pasifika-owned companies creates in our communities.

McConnell Dowell partners with Amotai on all our New Zealand projects to help support ongoing success. On the Puhinui Interchange project in Auckland the team engaged a number of accredited suppliers and locally owned businesses. This procurement strategy resulted in:

• a spend of $730K on local priority businesses over 30% more than the target of $150K
• mentoring for businesses upskilling and development activities increased by 30%
• there were 30% more education and training sessions for new employees.

The Eco Pristine Cleaning Company is one example of the many success stories the partnership between McConnell and Dowell and Amotai has fostered. Aroha Nepia is the owner of Eco Pristine who most recently worked on the Papakura to Pukekohe Electrification Project. Her business has grown to eight people and is thriving with Amotai. "It’s been an exciting journey," she says, "I can support my family and create employment in my community – best of all I get to be my own boss!”

McConnell Dowell (MCD) is on a journey of cultural understanding to learn more about Māori culture - te Reo and te Ao Māori - the language and the unique way Māori see the world and our place in it. 

Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) is New Zealand’s founding document and informs how we do business today. We engage with mana whenua (people of the land) and different iwi groups (tribes) in line with the Treaty’s three principles - partnership, participation and protection. We ‘partner’ with mana whenua (as authorities over the land) and the client so they can ‘participate’ in the planning stage of our projects.

The first step is consultation on draft management plans where we discuss issues such as environmental controls and processes, and how we work on archaeologically significant land. During construction we meet regularly so iwi representatives can work alongside us, in their role as kaitiakitanga (caretakers), to oversee and ‘protect’ the environment and the cultural and spiritual needs of the team.

People are at the core of why and how we deliver cultural engagement. Donna Wilson (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga, Ngāi Tahu) is the first Social and Broader Outcomes Advisor at the MCD Group (NZ & the Pacific, Australia, and Southeast Asia). She joined the business in 2022 and supports projects to deliver social and broader outcomes initiatives and is growing our social procurement network.

In 2023, Nate Rowe joined the Te Whare Wai Para Nuku project team in Wellington as a Kaitohutohu or Local Indigenous Advisor. His role is to instil mana whenua values and initiatives which is one of the project’s aims. Māori values are evident in many of the project's initiatives, so it was fitting that it was gifted a new name at Matariki this year by local iwi, Taranaki Whanui. Click here to watch a video about the new name - Te Whare Wai Para Nuku.

He holds regular cultural inductions, has given the meeting rooms names in te Reo, written a karakia for the project, and worked with the team to relocate, and restore the native Tūmatakuru/Matagouri in the Wellington area. 

Other initiatives implemented across the business as part of engagement with mana whenua include:

Te Reo Māori (language) courses in 2021, 2022 and 2023 by Aro Solutions] so all employees could learn te Reo Māori, about tikanga (custom), and were able to write and competently deliver their mihi (a personalised greeting) in te Reo Māori.

• Cultural Engagement Plans on our projects – outlining who, when, where, how, about what and why we will engage with local iwi.
• Karakia (blessing) before project’s
• Cultural inductions – an overview of the cultural significance of a project and the wider area.
• Hui (meet) regularly with iwi (tribe)
• Cultural monitoring – overseeing earthworks or other activity on culturally significant land.
• Bilingual signage – site signage in English and te Reo Māori.
• Training – with partners such as TupuToa to develop young Māori
• Social procurement training for all staff
• Celebrating cultural events like Matariki– Māori New Year - as a business 

McConnell Dowell New Zealand (Aotearoa) offered two wāhine (women) Paige Leota and Leila Finau, the opportunity to attend Kia Tupu Kia Toa (To Grow to be Warriors), as part of our relationship with TupuToa.

We have been working with TupuToa since 2021 when our first Māori and Pacific graduates joined the programme and the inaugural Kia Tupu Kia Toa programme was launched in 2022.

The leadership programme Kia Tupu Kia Toa has been carefully co-designed with TupuToa Alumni and staff so the right voices are heard and contribute their insights to build robust learning outcomes. It was designed to extend Māori and Pasifika professionals in leadership roles or transitioning into a position with more responsibilities.     

McConnell Dowell signed Paige and Leila up to the five wānanga (courses) over five months in late 2023. 

To finalise and embed the learnings from the programme Paige and Leila with the other tauira (students) presented to their peers, tutors, invited quests, managers and whanau, about how the programme has helped them and its legacy in their lives. 

McConnell Dowell has a long association delivering infrastructure projects in American Samoa and other Pacific Islands. Our project teams working in the islands become part of these close-knit communities and they often see opportunities for the team to give back to the locals they are working with.

In a reciprocal relationship the local people provide projects with talent for construction and we in turn look for substantial ways we can use machinery, materials or skills to benefit the local people in return. 

Some of the community projects the team find most rewarding involve upgrading school facilities for local children. At Tafuna High School this meant responding to a request from the Parent Teachers Association to fix up the school’s drainage and create an access road to the carpark using McConnell Dowell-donated plant, labour and materials. Here you can see the drainage works well on their way and the access road starting to take shape.

We also supported the Pavaiai High School's aim to create an all weather assembly area by donating recycled millings and asphalt to the project. Before the resurfacing students had to sit on muddy grass when they gathered during bad weather. As you can see from the photos, they now have an area they can use to gather or play whatever the weather.

In 2020, McConnell Dowell embarked on a journey with Aro Solutions and Carel Smith to learn te reo Māori and tikanga. The leadership team learned to mihi, or how to introduce themselves in formal greeting. In 2022 they developed their understanding further by learning about tikanga, or Māori customs and protocols, and the principles of Treaty of Waitangi - partnership, participation and protection.

In 2022 the New Zealand business rolled out the Aro Solutions course learning te reo Māori to the entire business and the programme has had great success!

• Nine senior leaders in the New Zealand team completed the first course in 2020
• Over 80 employees have already completed their te reo training
• Each hui (meeting) begins and ends with a karakia (prayer)
• The course is six weeks long and is made up of six lessons
• The goal is for 50-75% of staff to complete the course by the end of 2022

Providing employees with the opportunity to learn te reo Māori will encourage understanding and appreciation of Māori language and culture. It will also give people the confidence to use te reo in their daily lives and take a more active part in events like the karakia (blessings) that are held at the start of our projects. 

McConnell Dowell partnered with TupuToa in 2021 to place Māori and Pasifika graduates and interns into our business as the first step in their careers.                

TupuToa, is a social enterprise with a vision to grow Māori and Pasifika leaders who will in turn grow a greater Aotearoa. The initiative that TupuToa delivers is a nationwide programme that provides sustained support for tauira (students) so they can successfully fulfil their career aspirations and become leaders in industry and the community. 

They saw the need to see increased Māori and Pacific representation in leadership positions in the corporate sector.

Māori and Pacific peoples make up a quarter of our population yet only 17 per cent of New Zealand’s top 60 firms have an executive who identifies as other than European/Pākehā. 

The programmes aim to address the persistent inequalities facing our communities and disrupt intergenerational disadvantage. By supporting organisations to successfully recruit and onboard Māori and Pacific peoples" and supporting tauira through the process the barriers are lowered and a career in construction and engineering becomes a choice.

Featured below are McConnell Dowell New Zealand's first group of TupuToa interns with their TupuToa lead, Telayna Tapene. 

Left is Oskar Waikari, our Cadet Quantity Surveyor based at the Eastland Port Wharf 7 Project in Gisborne. Right is Conrad Winthrop a Finance Undergraduate based in our head office in Mt Wellington, Auckland.