GHD welcomes Michele Villa to team in Western Australia

Global engineering consultancy GHD has welcomed seasoned sustainability consultant Michele Villa to its ranks in Australia.

Italian-origin Michele Villa brings some three decades of experience in environmental, health & safety and social impact consulting services to the firm, gained in Europe and Australia. Most recently, he was running his own consultancy (‘NextStep Consulting’) and digital start-up (ADAM AI Solutions) providing (digital) solutions to address sustainability and workplace issues.

Before that, he spent over fifteen years holding leadership positions at three major consulting firms. At DuPont Sustainable Solutions (a 1,000-strong consultancy dedicated to environmental topics and health & safety operations), Villa was a Director and leader of the Global Practice Leaders team and the Centre for Knowledge Management. 

Previously, Villa was a partner at EY in Australia, leading the Climate Change and Sustainability Services team operations in Western Australia, and managing partner of the Perth office of ERM (the world’s largest pure-play sustainability consultancy). The latter role coincided with his relocation to Australia in 2006 – previously in native Italy he headed the domestic ERM practice, among others. 

At GHD, an Australia-founded (1928) global leader in the market sectors of water, energy and urbanisation, Villa will lead the Digital’s D-Lab in Western Australia – an innovation practice that helps clients transform and generate new business value and impact. He will also be responsible for growing GHD’s Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability services in the region. 

Villa’s areas of specialisation include identifying risk, improving business performance and implementing best practice for future emissions trading, environmental and health and safety management systems, sustainability programs and waste management, with a focus on clients in the oil & gas, mining, manufacturing and public service sectors.