Emergent Group has recently had a boost to its already impressive ‘brains trust’ with the arrival of two senior recruits. Paul Reynolds joins Advitech in the newly created position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Professor Chris Kellett is spending a year with the group while on sabbatical from Australian National University (ANU).
Both Paul and Chris bring extensive experience and a wealth of new ideas to apply to how the group operates and what it can offer clients.
Something that Paul and Chris share is a passion for enhancing the interaction between universities and industry. Both see that industry can inform education practices in our universities and that academia has much to offer industry in facing its multitude of challenges.
Paul’s strong ties to engineering education are through his involvement with Engineers Australia (EA) and his role with the University of Newcastle Mechanical and Mechatronics Industry Advisory Committee. Paul currently chairs the EA Education Committee and is a director on its accreditation board. Paul is also a board member of Regional Development Australia Hunter, which leads and facilitates collaborations between industry, education, research and government.
Paul recently left his position at Ampcontrol, where he worked in various roles since 2012, as he was looking for new professional challenges. He saw the COO position at Advitech and jumped at the chance to throw his hat in the ring for an opportunity that he saw as exciting and full of potential.
“I’m passionate about technology and I saw Advitech’s diversity of technical capabilities being used across many industry sectors including high growth areas such as Energy and Renewables, and knew I needed to be a part of it,” said Paul.
Following his tenure in the prestigious position of Director of the School of Engineering at ANU, Chris is taking a break to immerse himself in an engineering and scientific consultancy. He targeted Emergent Group for this sabbatical on the strength of its reputation for openness to innovative ideas and strong ties with industry across multiple sectors.
With an academic career spanning 22 years (post-PhD) and three continents, Chris, who was raised in the USA, has studied, taught, and researched in the USA, France, Ireland and Australia. He has always been on the lookout for interesting learning and development opportunities and new areas to research.
“I’m hunting around for interesting problems that people don’t know how to solve,” said Chris.
Situated among engineers and scientists who deal with businesses and their challenges every day, Chris will be able to offer his particular engineering expertise along with his theoretical approach to problem-solving.
Chris has become a world leader in ‘control theory’, a branch of applied mathematics that investigates how to better manage or control a dynamic ‘system’. He has worked on systems ranging from robots to mobile phones, to electricity networks and the economics of climate change.
Emergent Group companies Advitech, Novecom and Acubis now all have an added skillset and methodology to apply to the challenges brought to us by clients.
The addition of Paul’s engineering and management experience and his enthusiasm for building a business, along with Chris’ broad engineering background and unique expertise in control theory, sets Emergent Group up for some exciting projects and growth into new areas of endeavour.
If your business is facing complex technical or logistical challenges, get in touch with us and we’ll happily explore how we can help you.
Photo: Chris Kellett (left) and Paul Reynolds (right)
