Somewhere in Latin America. 2021. A consortium wins a massive infrastructure contract. Billions of dollars. Press headlines. Champagne. “We’re the best,” they say. More Champagne. Expensive hotels. More expensive restaurants. The very first project like this… ever. Yeah! Bonus. Yeah! But that was the problem. The team that won it… had zero clue how to deliver a PPP of that size. This is NOT theory. This happened in real life. Signed. Celebrated. New suits. Photos with the minister. Of course…...
1 day ago • 1 min read
They say that if you don’t get haters, it’s because you are unnoticed. They also say that if you don’t get sued, it’s because you are not achieving anything valuable. I may be talking a little personal here. But, apply this to the PPP world and you’ll get the same pattern. If you are an agency and some people don’t dislike you, you’re probably being average. You’re a kind of Care Bear, an Osito Amoroso. Spreading love. Fearful of upsetting anybody. You’re average in Averageland. And if you...
3 days ago • 1 min read
The Channel Tunnel. 50-km underwater megastructure linking France and the UK. An engineering icon. A masterpiece. A miracle of geology, finance, diplomacy, and caffeine or theine. A day like today in 1998. New Year’s Day. Half the team hungover. Half asleep. Half the world still partying. The temperature suddenly dropped. Outside: freezing. Inside the service tunnels: warm and humid. A perfect recipe for the gods of engineering to say: “Let’s mess with them.” Condensation froze. Ice formed on...
4 days ago • 1 min read
If you thought that I’ll be telling you happy new year stuff, you don’t know me enough. Once that you over drink and over eat tonight, you have one year ahead. To grow. To become better. To achieve great things. Up to you, what you want to do tomorrow. When there are some people messing around with “resaca” or a “hangover”, others will be running. Vicente Valencia Academy PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day....
5 days ago • 1 min read
Brisbane, Australia. 2011. A hot, humid year, and an even hotter PPP disaster: the Clem7 Tunnel. Traffic numbers tanked. Revenue collapsed. The SPV went into voluntary administration. And the government, tired, embarrassed, politically cornered… decided to move fast. Maybe too fast. “Take control. Sort the mess. Do it now.” And they did. At light speed. They pushed what, in PPP terms, is basically the nuclear button: step-in, buy-out, asset recovery… messily… everything at once. OMG. The...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Everything starts in a few hours. At around 9:00am. Matt Gray calls it separation. Why? Because what you choose to do at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning will separate you from 99% of your competitors. No matter is colleagues, companies or whatever. You compete. Almost for survival. While many wait to January 1st to start doing things in a new year, Matt Gray for example starts his year on October 1. While everyone else is waiting until after the holidays to start, he already knows exactly what he is...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Commandment #1 — Until it is signed, nothing is approved. Forget the workshops, the smiles, the “green light,” the political announcement, the press release. If the contract isn’t signed, nothing is real. Assume this, or prepare for endless backtracking and surprises. Commandment #2 — If you didn’t get the OK from the affected stakeholders, don’t do it. Treasury, the local council, procurement, operations, the unions, regulators, local communities, the CFO… Miss one and you’ll pay for it...
8 days ago • 3 min read
I tried to move the suitcase. And I couldn’t believe the weight. “But… what have you put inside, just for a few days?” “Almost nothing, it’s half-empty” I wondered what the weight would be for my wife if the suitcase was half-full. We live in a world of abundance. But this creates a big issue in many people. It’s difficult to decide. To choose. Pick up something and disregard the rest. I call it the Tinder syndrome. Lots of dates, but zero commitment… as you feel that you’re missing out if...
9 days ago • 1 min read
I’ve been doing quite a lot of work these days with market lead proposals. I mean, proposals coming directly from the market and made to the government of New Zealand. I love the ideas put forward by proponent. Their enthusiasm. And commitment. Most of them fail in the “exclusivity” criteria. Why you are so good that the government absolutely needs to negotiate with you directly without going to the market. It’s fascinating. That’s a high bar, but some people get through it. IP, exclusive...
10 days ago • 1 min read