This article has been supplied.For GIBB’s Pravanya Pillay, engineering is not simply about building infrastructure. It is about understanding the systems, decisions and human behaviour that determine whether infrastructure creates lasting value.
A strategist by instinct and an engineer by training, she says she was never interested in infrastructure simply for the sake of infrastructure. “What fascinated me was cause and effect: why one intervention can unlock an entire area or economy, while another can become a very expensive asset looking for a purpose.”
Transportation took her fascination to another level because it sits at the intersection of engineering, economics, human behaviour, land use, politics and social development.
“A road, railway, bus route or taxi operation is never just a transport intervention. It influences where people can work, where businesses invest, how cities grow and, ultimately, the choices people have in their lives.”
Her return to GIBB after a 10-year hiatus was less about returning to somewhere familiar and more about returning with a completely different lens. “I have since had the opportunity to sit on several sides of the transport table – as a technical specialist, within local government, as a consultant and eventually in executive leadership. You see the industry differently once you have been both the client, buying professional services, and the consultant responsible for delivering them.”
