In this episode, John talks with Hani Arab, CIO at Seymour Whyte, about how a civil engineer became the technology leader for one of Australia’s major infrastructure contractors, and what it actually takes to drive technology adoption across field teams.

Hani shares the early moments that pulled him toward tech, from GSM-connected site systems in the 2000s to today’s push toward AI-enabled operations. They dig into the realities of supporting remote projects, why the biggest challenges now are organisational rather than technical, and how Seymour Whyte builds trust with engineers so digital tools don’t feel like top-down mandates.

Hani also explains how they evaluate new tools, the role of enterprise architecture, why customer success matters just as much internally as it does for vendors, and how API-first platforms are shaping the future of design and construction workflows.

They finish with the big one: AI. Hani lays out his goal for the next 12–24 months; 800 out of 1,000 Seymour Whyte employees using AI agents as part of their daily routine, and why broad, everyday gains across documents, meetings, tasks, and workflows will matter more than narrow, high-risk experiments.

A grounded, candid look at what modern tech leadership in civil construction actually requires.