About Catalyst Project Consulting - Development Project Managers

About Us

Who We Are

Catalyst Project Consulting are senior people who are highly experienced, highly qualified and highly connected professionals, with excellent references and a broad range of project expertise. We have decades of experience managing a variety of major commercial, residential and industrial projects in the education, commercial, industrial, residential and mining industries for clients such as CSR Building Products, Coles Group Property Developments, Thirdi Property Group, Charter Hall, Tomago Aluminium, The University of Newcastle, Life Without Barriers, Merewether Golf Club, Hunter & Central Coast Development Corporation and Cutcher & Neale Accountants.

We are all locals with very strong local networks, which means you can benefit from knowing we will select the right consultant team based on both specialist expertise and personalities. Having managed local projects for decades, we also understand and have very good professional relationships with the local Authorities, often leading to expedited project approvals.

Our Senior Team

Kris Leck

Project Director

MBA (Merit), B.Const.Mgnt (Hons), MAIPM
Kris has successfully managed over $1.5b in projects over 22 years.

Kris has been personally responsible for the delivery of a range of projects up to $80M, and has been a key member of the management of projects up to $600M. In order to ensure the successful completion of these projects it has been critical to engage and make accountable the multi-disciplinary teams including consultants, in-house team members, construction contractors, regulatory bodies and clients. These design teams often include more than 20 different specialist consultants, and any major project can have more than 40 disparate stakeholders, all with varying objectives and expectations. Kris has been responsible for ensuring that these stakeholders work together towards agreed objectives and outcomes, often to very restricted time frames.

Kris has developed well-rounded experience managing various major commercial projects. Following his first employment as a Contract Administrator with Kell & Rigby Builders, he established himself as a contractor to achieve wide-ranging experience with various Tier 1 & 2 Building Contractors. In 2005 Kris established his own commercial construction company with a $5,000 credit card and within 1 year was turning over $2M, and spent more than a decade on the contracting side of construction.

Kris is an accomplished expert in Client Representative Project Management, Contract Management, Construction Project Management, Design Management and managing pre-construction development phases.

With more than 22 years’ experience in the construction industry, Kris demonstrates exceptional proficiency in time & people resource management, and has acquired a strong commercial acumen.

Tim Mackiewicz

Project Director

B.Const.Mgnt.

Tim has over 20 years’ experience in project management. Tim started his career in the luxury yacht and shipbuilding industry where he successfully managed a range of both refit and new build projects in Australia, Asia and Europe. Tim made the transition to the construction industry in 2016 when he joined the Catalyst Team.

Tim has developed specialist client-side project management skills, successfully delivering a broad range of commercial and residential projects for both private and public clients. Tim has strong experience in all aspects of a project lifecycle including feasibility studies, design management, value engineering, authority and utility approvals, procurement, contract negotiation, contract superintendency, handover and defects management as well as facilities management.

Tim’s diverse experience in project delivery and strengths in leadership, technical understanding and strong interpersonal relationships make him an asset to any project.

What our clients say

“Catalyst Project Consulting has provided valuable service to us both in a Development Management and Project Management capacity. Kris has led all aspects of our project scope ranging broadly from marketing to rehabilitation works with absolute professionalism.”

Martin O'Connell

Director, AWJ Civil

“Catalyst delivered more than I expected with the way the Project was managed, Would gladly recommend Catalyst, and would use them again in future.“

Jack Hanson

Corporate Services Executive, Hunter Primary Care

“Catalyst share the same beliefs that CSR does, that is working together, good customer service, getting results, innovation and the most important part on our sites is safety, health and the environment. I’ve been working with Catalyst now for 6 years, on one of our major projects which is a rather significant remediation project in Maitland. Catalyst have been involved in all aspects of the remediation, from initial community consultation, dealing with statutory bodies such as Council, Mines Department and Crown Lands, and then ultimately providing feasibilities and budgets which then led to tendering and contract documentation. They manage CSR’s money as if it’s their own.”

Dominic Caronvale

Development Manager, CSR Limited

“Thirdi and Catalyst – great relationship. If you’ve done something with someone for 10 years, it’s obviously working. When you look at the success of a project, and we have a number of projects across a number of cities, Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle, and we’re now doing stuff in London as well, it all comes down to a great team, and Darc (Anthony Darcy) is someone I respect from an industry perspective, he is very good on the details, and we wouldn’t be here today doing it with Darc 10 years on if he wasn’t doing a good job. There’s been a few projects we have worked on and like all development they have had their issues and it’s a testament to the Catalyst team that those issues were dealt with in a timely manner and I know all those projects, when I drive past, I’m heavily proud of what we have achieved. It’s a great team and we look forward to doing more projects in the future with the team.”

Bob Huxley

Director, Thirdi Group