Aveng has appointed Fraser Wyllie as CEO designate, effective 1 October, ending an eight-month search that began when Scott Cummins retired in January. Wyllie, a civil engineer with more than 30 years of contracting experience in the UK and New Zealand, currently runs McConnell Dowell’s New Zealand and Pacific Islands business, the group’s largest operating unit.
Aveng said on Monday that its nominations committee weighed a number of strong internal and external candidates before settling on Wyllie. Since joining McConnell Dowell as managing director in July 2017, he has turned around a portfolio of underperforming projects to the point where his business unit has not recorded a loss-making project in three years, with its Australian counterpart transferring water and wastewater expertise into the New Zealand team over the past year.
The appointment lands alongside a broader boardroom reshuffle. Graeme Bevans, named chairperson-designate in March, formally became chair on 21 August. On the same day, Philip Hourquebie, a board member since August 2015 who had chaired the audit committee and led the board through some difficult periods, and Nicolas Bowen, who joined in July 2023 and chaired the risk and health and safety committees, both retired.
| Aveng founded | 1889 |
| FY2026 revenue | A$2.3bn (R26.4bn), down 12.4% |
| FY2026 operating earnings | A$19.3m, versus an A$60.4m loss a year earlier |
| FY2026 headline loss per share | narrowed sharply to 3 Australian cents |
| New CEO effective | 1 October 2026 |
| New chair effective | 21 August 2026 |
Wyllie holds a bachelor of engineering in civil engineering from the University of Auckland and an MBA from Massey University. He is a chartered engineer, an active member of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand, a director of Horizon Energy Group and chair of Infrastructure New Zealand, an industry body whose government and infrastructure-pipeline connections could prove useful given how heavily Aveng’s fortunes now rest on public works spending across Australasia.
The appointment follows two days after Aveng reported results for the year to June showing revenue down 12.4% to A$2.3bn, as infrastructure markets in Australia and New Zealand softened. Even so, the group returned to gross profitability across every operating segment and swung to operating earnings of A$19.3m from a A$60.4m loss the prior year, while headline loss per share narrowed sharply to three Australian cents. Its Australian and Southeast Asian infrastructure businesses remained under pressure as the group continued working through a handful of legacy loss-making contracts.
The leadership change comes at the tail end of a longer recovery. Aveng traces its roots to 1889, originally as Anglovaal Engineering before later trading as LTA, and spent much of the past decade repairing a balance sheet strained by heavy losses that forced out its chief executive in 2017. South African legacy debt, which had peaked at around R3.3bn in 2018, was eventually settled using proceeds from the 2023 sale of steel distributor Trident Steel. That recovery has coincided with a geographic shift: Aveng now reports results in Australian dollars and has moved its operational centre of gravity toward McConnell Dowell in Australasia, even as it retains its JSE listing and a shareholder base that is roughly 30% international.
Wyllie becomes Aveng’s third group chief executive in under three years. Sean Flanagan retired as CEO in March 2024 and was succeeded by Cummins, who had led McConnell Dowell since 2015 before moving up to the group role. Cummins’s own retirement in January prompted the board to install David Simpson as interim CEO and director while the search for a permanent successor ran its course.