Rod Coulton

Rod Coulton is a leading water infrastructure advisor with 20 years’ experience at the national and state level. Rod’s specialist areas are infrastructure decision-making, business case development, cost benefit analysis, water pricing, financial analysis and urban and rural water policy. Rod works extensively with government, utilities and the private sector across Australia to develop water infrastructure business cases.

For the past nine years, Rod has worked closely with Infrastructure Australia to assess and advise on water and transport infrastructure business cases. During this time, Ricardo, led by Rod, has undertaken more than 20 detailed business case (Stage 3) reviews of nationally significant infrastructure projects in the water and transport sectors. These detailed business case reviews are similar to INSW ‘deep dives’ and entail assessing the strategic, economic and deliverability (including project approvals and delivery models) aspects of the business case. In 2020, Rod, working alongside our CBA analyst Alex Redmond, drafted updates to IA’s updated Assessment Framework.

Rod’s recent economics and business case experience includes leading the economics on the Mole River Dam Business Case, the Safe and Secure Water Program Business Case, the Nyngan to Cobar CBA and the CBA for a proposed desalination plant in Western Australia and Nullinga Dam in Queensland. Working closely with the Ricardo team, Rod provided strategic oversight and review of the Wyangala Dam CBA which, despite its complexity, passed INSW Gateway Review and received commendation from INSW on the quality of the economic analysis. Rod also played a lead role in delivering the ILM for the Reconnecting River Country Project. 

Rod is an experienced consultant with highly developed skills in economic analysis, policy development, stakeholder engagement and report writing for government and private sector clients.