Dr William T. Muhairwe is a Management Specialist trained in Economic and Business Management and has been managing public companies for more than the last 15 years in Uganda and abroad.

Since 1998 to date, he has been the Managing Director of National Water and Sewerage Corporation, a State Corporation that was almost collapsing due to mismanagement. Out of his initiatives, Dr Muhairwe has implemented innovative change management programmes that have successfully turned round NWSC from a loss making organisation to a profit making government parastatal which is now a benchmark for best practice both nationally and internationally among water utility organisations.

The organisation was named “Employer of the Year 2003 for Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility” and again got a Golden Award for Management Excellence in June 2004 and Employer of the Year 2004 for “Productivity and Performance Management”. In 2005, URA presented to the organisation with the “URA Vantage Award” for exemplary Tax Compliance on the Tax Payers’ Appreciation day. In 2007, NWSC was recognised as the East Africa’s Most Respected Company in the Service Sector.

Formerly, Dr Muhairwe worked for the Uganda Investment Authority as its Deputy and eventually Ag Executive Director for 3 years and was responsible for attracting inward private investments in Uganda. He was also, at one time, the MD of the East African Steel Corporation, a Joint Venture Company between the government of Uganda and a private company (The Madhvani Group).

Dr Muhairwe has key competences in Strategic Planning, Policy formulation, private sector development, restructuring of ailing state companies and managing them while preparing them for private sector investment and participation.

Dr Muhairwe has spearheaded the formation of an External Services function at NWSC, which has, hitherto, become a strong platform for sharing best utility management practices in the sub-Saharan African region and beyond. He has been retained to provide professional services to the World Bank in several assignments on top of his other External Services assignments in performance improvement strategy development in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, India and Pakistan. 

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Charles Ainger has 43 years of experience in engineering and management, mainly in the world-wide water sector. He has:

• BA in Mechanical Sciences, University of Cambridge, 1965; MA, 1968
• MSc in Water Resources Technology, University of Birmingham, 1971
• MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice, University of Bath, 2001

Charles is Visiting Professor in Engineering for Sustainable Development, University of Cambridge, UK. His other roles include:

• Sustainable Development Director, MWH UK (In consultancy role, post–retirement 4.08)
• Senior Associate, Cambridge Programme for Sustainable Leadership, 2003 onwards
• Member, Project Board, Scottish Government Stratgeic Overview of Climate Change Policy, 2008 onwards
• Co-editor, IWA Water and Climate web-journal, 2008 onwards
• Member, NI Authority for Utility Regulation’s Academic Advisory Panel, 2009 onwards

Charles has part-time roles as Visting Professor in graduate teaching in change for Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge, as Sustainable Development Director for MWH’s UK Operations, and as a Senior Associate at the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership; as well as other co-editor and advisory panel positions.

He has extensive water and environmental engineering experience in 16 countries from Europe to Asia. Since 1997 he has worked to introduce sustainable development concepts and strategies into engineering and business; particularly focussing recently on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

His particular interest is in facilitating effective innovation and change management’ in organisations moving to a more sustainable and carbon neutral approach, particulary in the water sector.

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Veronica Strang is an environmental anthropologist at the University of Auckland, whose work focuses on the social and cultural aspects of human-environmental interactions. Professor Strang spent several years as a researcher at Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, while also teaching at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (1994-1997). She worked at the University of Wales (1997-2000) before continuing her research in Australia with the award of a Royal Anthropological Institute Fellowship in Urgent Anthropology in 2000. She joined the University of Auckland in 2005 and between 2003 and 2007, with an ARC Discovery Grant and a Fellowship at the University of Queensland, she conducted research with diverse groups of water users along the Brisbane and Mitchell Rivers. The ethnographic focus on river catchments was designed to facilitate the integration of social and natural science research on water issues and this work led to her appointment to the Scientific Advisory Group and then to the Steering Committee of UNESCO’s International Ecohydrology Programme. She is also involved in UNESCO´s programme on Water and Cultural Diversity. In 2007 she was awarded an International Water Prize as one of UNESCO’s, Les Lumières de L’Eau (Water’s Leading Lights). 

Professor Strang’s research has led to numerous publications including Uncommon Ground: cultural landscapes and environmental values (Berg 1997); The Meaning of Water (Berg 2004); and Gardening the World: agency, identity, and the ownership of water (Berghahn 2009).  

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Shaun Cox is the Managing Director of South East Water Limited, a metropolitan water retailer with approximately 1.3 million customers.

Prior to this, Shaun was Director of Gold Coast Water for 12 years.  He holds a degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters of Engineering and Technology Management. 

Shaun is the immediate past Chair of the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), which is Australia’s peak national urban water industry body, representing some 15 million customers through its members. He is also a member of Engineers Australia.

He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland.

He also participated in the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council (PMSEIC) working group looking at Water for our cities. PMSEIC is the Australian Government's principal source of independent advice on issues in science, engineering and innovation.

Shaun’s career and organisational focus is on sustainability, and integrated planning – a key underpinning of sustainability.

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Ken Matthews has been the Chair and Chief Executive of the National Water Commission since March 2005. Mr Matthews was previously the Secretary of the Department of Transport and Regional Services and the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

His academic background is in economics, majoring in government (B.Ec. University of Sydney, 1974). Mr Matthews is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration and the Australian Institute of Management.

Mr Matthews received a Centenary Medal in 2001 for services to public administration and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO ) in 2005.

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