10 Influential Leaders in Building Products in Australia and New Zealand (2026)

Last updated: June 2026

The building products sector in Australia and New Zealand shapes the physical fabric of daily life more directly than almost any other industry. As of June 2026, the people manufacturing and supplying the cement, steel, aluminium, plasterboard, insulation, paint, and concrete that go into every home, hospital, school, and commercial building across the two countries are navigating one of the most demanding operating environments in the sector's history. Rising input costs, decarbonisation mandates, housing supply pressure, and a recovering construction cycle are all arriving simultaneously, and the leaders managing those pressures are doing consequential work that rarely receives the recognition it deserves.

This list puts together 10 of those leaders. Each person was selected for a documented, fact-checked contribution to the building products manufacturing and supply sector in Australia and New Zealand, a confirmed current role verified from primary sources, and an active public presence in 2025 and 2026. The list moves past the most familiar names in construction to surface the executives and advocates who are running building products businesses and representing building products supply chains at scale.

The building and construction industry contributes approximately 11.7 percent of Australia's GDP, and building and construction work across Australia totalled approximately USD 211 billion in the year to June 2025. In New Zealand, the sector is recovering from a significant contraction, with February 2026 dwelling consents up 22.9 percent on the same month in 2025, signalling that the worst of the downturn is behind the industry. Against that backdrop, building products manufacturers and suppliers face a specific set of pressures that differ from those facing builders and contractors. Supply chain resilience, product compliance under the National Construction Code, embodied carbon targets, and the transition to lower-carbon manufacturing are all live issues for the leaders on this list.

The Australia building materials market reached approximately USD 26,929 million in 2025 and is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 4.13 percent to reach approximately USD 38,770 million by 2034, driven by rising construction activity, increasing adoption of sustainable materials, and growing demand for energy-efficient building solutions. That growth story is the backdrop against which every leader on this list is operating.

Organisations across the building products sector looking to build stronger, more cohesive leadership teams can reach Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), at jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno works with manufacturing and industrial leadership teams on the team dynamics and communication frameworks that allow strategy to land.

Why Building Products Leadership Matters

Building products leadership sits at a unique intersection in the construction economy. The people on this list do not build structures. They manufacture and supply the raw materials and engineered products that builders use. That distinction matters because their decisions affect an entire industry's capacity to build affordably, safely, and sustainably.

The challenges facing building products leaders in 2026 are substantial. Embodied carbon, the carbon produced in the manufacture and transport of building materials, has become a central metric for major infrastructure projects and green-certified buildings. Leaders at steel, cement, concrete, and aluminium businesses are under sustained pressure to reduce their manufacturing emissions without compromising product performance or eroding margins that are already thin. The transition from gas-fired to electrically powered manufacturing processes is underway at several major Australian facilities, backed in some cases by government funding, but the capital investment required is significant.

Supply chain complexity adds another layer. Building products manufacturers sit between volatile raw material markets and a cyclical construction sector. When New Zealand's construction industry lost an estimated 18,000 jobs between mid-2022 and late 2024, the downstream impact on product volumes forced manufacturers and distributors to manage significant demand volatility. New Zealand's specific challenge, that it costs approximately 50 percent more to build a standalone home there than in Australia, has driven government action to open the market to more compliant overseas products, creating competitive pressure for domestic manufacturers while potentially improving housing affordability.

The leaders navigating all of this are the people on this list. Hiring Jonno White to facilitate your building products leadership team's next offsite or Working Genius workshop can sharpen the way your senior leaders work together on precisely these kinds of strategic challenges. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Each leader on this list was selected for a documented, fact-checked contribution to the building products manufacturing and supply sector in Australia and New Zealand. Selection criteria included a confirmed current role at a building products manufacturer, supplier, or directly relevant peak body, verified from a primary source dated within the last 12 months. Active engagement in the public conversation about building products in 2025 and 2026 was also a factor, along with substantive organisational leadership rather than simply holding a senior title.

The list covers leaders at large publicly listed manufacturers, significant private businesses, and the peak industry bodies that represent the building products supply chain in Australia and New Zealand. It does not include builders or contractors. It focuses on the people who make, distribute, and represent the products that builders use.

Category 1: Large-Scale Building Products Manufacturers

The largest building products manufacturers in Australia and New Zealand supply the materials that underpin the entire construction sector. Their leaders are managing organisations of significant scale, navigating complex regulatory environments, and making long-horizon investment decisions about the next generation of lower-carbon products.

1. Tony Dragicevich

Capral Aluminium

Tony Dragicevich is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Capral Aluminium, Australia's largest aluminium extrusion manufacturer and distributor. In 2026, Capral celebrates 90 years of operations, a milestone that reflects the company's remarkable longevity and its continued relevance as a domestic manufacturer in a sector facing strong import competition. Dragicevich has led Capral through a period of strategic investment in sustainable manufacturing, including the development of LocAl, Capral's lower-carbon aluminium product, which was selected for 700 tonnes of suspended ceiling work at Western Sydney International Airport.

Under his leadership, Capral secured up to AUD 3.45 million in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency in April 2026 to replace a 40-year-old gas-fired furnace at its Bremer Park facility in Queensland with a fully electric system, a project expected to lift energy efficiency from approximately 20 percent to more than 90 percent while significantly reducing Scope 1 emissions. Dragicevich's consistent public commentary on the importance of domestic manufacturing, the energy cost pressures facing Australian aluminium producers, and the critical role of local smelters like Tomago and Boyne makes him one of the most active and specific voices in Australian building products manufacturing. His recent acquisition of Perth-based aluminium systems distributor Comsupply demonstrates the strategic ambition behind his operational leadership.

2. Andrew Reding

Fletcher Building

Andrew Reding is the Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Fletcher Building, New Zealand's largest building products and construction company, a role he has held since August 2024. Fletcher Building employs more than 12,500 people and generated approximately NZD 6.5 billion in revenue in the 2025 financial year, with its operations spanning manufacturing, distribution, retail, and construction across New Zealand and Australia.

Reding has made the strategic direction of Fletcher Building unusually clear since taking the role. In January 2026, Fletcher announced the sale of its Fletcher Construction division to French infrastructure group VINCI, with Reding explicitly framing the transaction as part of a deliberate pivot to being a focused building products manufacturer and distributor. The deal, structured around Fletcher Construction's three New Zealand business units, positions the residual Fletcher Building as a pure-play building materials and distribution company, a significant strategic repositioning for one of the most important industrial businesses in the Southern Hemisphere. Reding's public commentary in late 2025 showed both candour about the challenges the New Zealand market faces and clarity about the company's future direction, qualities that matter considerably in a company of Fletcher's scale and complexity.

3. Paul Dalton

CSR

Paul Dalton has been the Chief Executive Officer of CSR Pty Limited since July 2024, following the completion of French global materials group Saint-Gobain's approximately AUD 4.3 billion acquisition of the Australian building products company. CSR manufactures some of Australia and New Zealand's most recognised building products brands, including Gyprock plasterboard, Bradford insulation, PGH bricks and pavers, Monier roofing tiles, and Hebel autoclaved aerated concrete, across 30 manufacturing plants with approximately 2,500 to 2,800 employees.

Dalton brings more than 30 years of construction industry experience to the role, having spent the previous four and a half years at CSR in senior leadership positions before being appointed CEO at the time of the Saint-Gobain transaction. His appointment as CEO at that moment was a deliberate signal of operational continuity by Saint-Gobain, which expressed confidence in the existing management team's ability to integrate with its global platform while maintaining CSR's established market relationships and product portfolio. Dalton is a member of the Champions of Change National Group, which works across Australian organisations to improve the representation of women in leadership, a commitment that reflects a public leadership posture beyond the immediate operational domain. His deep familiarity with CSR's manufacturing operations and customer relationships across both countries makes him the central figure in one of the most significant transitions in the recent history of the Australian building products industry.

4. Matt McKenzie

Boral

Matt McKenzie became the Chief Executive Officer of Boral on 1 April 2026, succeeding Vik Bansal who led the company through a major transformation programme under the Good to Great strategy over the preceding three years. Boral is one of Australia's largest vertically integrated construction materials businesses, with operations spanning concrete, quarries, asphalt, and recycling across the country. McKenzie joined Boral in July 2025 as Chief Operating Officer as part of a planned succession, having previously served as Executive General Manager for Concrete and Quarries in Boral's southern operations.

His background includes senior leadership roles at Cleanaway, Oracle Utilities, and General Electric across a 14-year span, bringing cross-sector operational rigour to a business known for the depth and complexity of its integrated construction materials network. McKenzie has been explicit that the foundations laid under Bansal's leadership are strong, and that his priorities centre on continued safety performance improvement, operational excellence across every site, and reliable delivery for customers. As the incoming CEO of a business that operates at the heart of Australia's infrastructure and housing supply pipeline, his leadership through the expected construction recovery of the late 2020s will be closely watched by the entire sector.

5. Patrick Houlihan

DuluxGroup

Patrick Houlihan was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DuluxGroup in January 2026, after serving for 15 years as the company's Chief Operating Officer for the Dulux division. Houlihan joined DuluxGroup in 1995 as a research chemist and has spent his entire career at the company, progressing through technical, commercial, and general management roles across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. DuluxGroup generated approximately AUD 4.2 billion in revenue in 2025 and employs approximately 8,600 people, with operations spanning paints and coatings, sealants and adhesives, garden care, and garage door systems under brands including Dulux, Selleys, Cabot's, Yates, and B&D.

His appointment as CEO follows DuluxGroup's ongoing strategic expansion under the ownership of Nippon Paint Group, the Asia-Pacific's largest paint company, which acquired DuluxGroup in 2019. Under that ownership, DuluxGroup has more than doubled in size. Houlihan's deep product knowledge, built from his origins as a chemist working directly in Dulux's research and development laboratories, gives him an unusually granular understanding of the technical dimensions of a business that manufactures products used on virtually every building surface in Australia and New Zealand. His long institutional memory and his operational leadership through DuluxGroup's expansion into Europe and Asia position him as one of the most experienced building products executives in the region.

Category 2: Steel and Structural Materials Leaders

Steel and structural materials underpin the physical skeleton of the built environment. The leaders in this category are managing businesses at the intersection of manufacturing, decarbonisation, and a construction market in transition.

6. Robin Davies

New Zealand Steel

Robin Davies is the Chief Executive Officer of New Zealand Steel, the country's sole producer of flat rolled steel products for the building, construction, manufacturing, and agricultural industries. New Zealand Steel operates a fully integrated steel mill at Glenbrook, approximately 60 kilometres south of Auckland, and produces around 650,000 tonnes of steel annually using locally sourced ironsand, a uniquely New Zealand production technology with no direct equivalent anywhere else in the world. NZ Steel's brands include COLORSTEEL, AXXIS, and ZINCALUME.

Davies has led New Zealand Steel through one of the most significant strategic decisions in the company's recent history. In 2025, the company secured government partnership approval to install an Electric Arc Furnace at the Glenbrook mill in 2026, described as the country's largest decarbonisation effort in its history. The transition from the current ironsand-based process to an electric arc furnace will dramatically reduce the mill's carbon emissions and is backed by a landmark supply arrangement with Global Metal Solutions to use New Zealand's scrap steel in the new furnace. Davies also oversaw a 2025 collaboration with Wellington UniVentures and researchers at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington on a hydrogen-iron-making process that could eliminate coal and carbon emissions from the steel-making process entirely. He is set to become BlueScope's Chief Executive for Australia and New Zealand from 1 July 2026, a transition that marks a significant broadening of his remit across one of the most important steel products businesses in the Southern Hemisphere.

7. Mark Malpass

Steel & Tube Holdings

Mark Malpass has been the Chief Executive Officer of Steel & Tube Holdings since 2017, leading New Zealand's leading provider of steel solutions across the building, construction, manufacturing, industrial, and rural sectors. Steel & Tube operates a national network with a comprehensive range of products from structural steel and reinforcing to roofing, nuts and bolts, and agricultural fencing, supplying the full breadth of steel products used in New Zealand construction from the foundations to the roof. The company is listed on the New Zealand Exchange.

Malpass brought to Steel & Tube a career spanning ExxonMobil's Asia-Pacific operations, Fulton Hogan, and Fletcher Building's Infrastructure Products division, where he served as Chief Executive of that division before being appointed to the Steel & Tube CEO role. Under his leadership, Steel & Tube invested significantly in digital capability, building an omni-channel platform that allows customers to engage through websites, webshops, and customer service teams, and achieving what Malpass has described as a significant turnaround from losses to profitability through disciplined strategy execution and margin improvement. His consistent communication about how Steel & Tube serves the construction sector from the ground up, reinforcing in the floor to roofing over the head, reflects a practitioner's understanding of how steel products sit within the broader building supply chain.

Category 3: Construction Materials and Aggregate Leaders

Cement, concrete, and aggregates are the most tonnage-intensive building products in both countries, and the leaders managing these businesses are operating at the furthest frontier of industrial decarbonisation.

8. Rob Gaimster

Concrete NZ

Rob Gaimster is the Chief Executive of Concrete NZ, the national peak body for the concrete and cement industry in New Zealand, an organisation formed through the consolidation of five existing concrete sector associations to create a single, authoritative voice for the industry. Concrete NZ's mandate spans regulatory advocacy, knowledge transfer, standards development, and building industry resilience, with a particular focus on positioning concrete as the resilient construction material of choice for a modern New Zealand.

Gaimster has been one of the most internationally active of the building products sector leaders in ANZ. In 2025, he attended the GCCA Global Cement and Concrete Association CEO Gathering and Leaders Conference in Zurich, where he engaged with senior influencers on net zero transition strategy for the concrete industry. He has been driving Concrete NZ's 2050 roadmap for a net zero carbon concrete industry in Aotearoa, a programme that requires sustained engagement with members, government, and international cement and concrete networks. His role in consolidating previously fragmented concrete sector representation into a single body with genuine technical and policy authority makes him one of the most consequential figures in building products leadership in New Zealand, even if that work happens largely outside the attention of construction media.

Category 4: Building Products Supply Chain and Distribution Leaders

Building products only reach builders and homeowners through the supply chain and distribution networks that get them from factory to site. The leaders in this category are managing the merchant and distribution businesses that connect manufacturing to construction.

9. Simon Burden

BuildLink Group

Simon Burden is the Chief Executive Officer of BuildLink Group, a New Zealand cooperative network of independently owned building supply merchants specialising in timber, hardware, kitset homes, and farm sheds. BuildLink's members serve the full range of building and rural customers across New Zealand, operating with a philosophy of local ownership and community focus that gives independent building merchants a competitive platform against larger national retail chains.

Burden is one of the most publicly active voices in the New Zealand building products supply chain. He sits on the Board of the Building Industry Federation NZ as Deputy Chair, putting him at the centre of the most important advocacy and policy conversations for the building products supply chain in New Zealand. His LinkedIn commentary is consistently engaged and specific, covering BIF NZ board meetings, government policy interactions, and the practical realities of building supply in regional New Zealand. In 2026, he has been actively communicating the significance of NZ government policy changes to building products importation, advocating for his network of member merchants as the market adjusts to the increased availability of compliant overseas building products. BuildLink has now been operating for more than 20 years, with Burden delivering long-service awards to founding members, a moment that reflects the depth of the cooperative relationships he stewards.

Category 5: Peak Bodies and Industry Standards

Building products peak bodies set the policy, advocacy, and standards environment that determines how products are manufactured, certified, imported, distributed, and used in construction. The leader in this category shapes the regulatory context for every other leader on this list.

10. Julien Leys

Building Industry Federation New Zealand

Julien Leys is the Chief Executive of the Building Industry Federation of New Zealand, the only peak industry body representing New Zealand's building and construction supply chain, with members spanning manufacturers, distributors, hardware merchants, and construction product suppliers. BIF NZ engages directly with government, standards bodies, and the broader industry on the policy and regulatory conditions that shape how building products are manufactured, imported, specified, and used in New Zealand construction.

Leys has been one of the most consistently published voices on building products policy in New Zealand for more than a decade. His 2025 NZ Infrastructure Review article on overcoming New Zealand's infrastructure challenges explicitly connected the quality and resilience of the building supply chain to the country's broader infrastructure delivery performance. He has long advocated for a national product register for building materials, arguing that the absence of a comprehensive register leaves New Zealand consumers and designers without adequate confidence in the compliance status of the products they are using. His role hosting BIF NZ's Building Leaders Forum video series, which profiles leaders across the supply chain, demonstrates a commitment to elevating sector voices as well as his own. His direct engagement with New Zealand's Deputy Prime Minister in early 2026 on building products market reform reflects the genuine policy access that comes with leading a sector's peak body at a moment of significant regulatory change.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

The building products sector is broader than any single list can capture. Several leaders warrant mention who did not make the final cut.

Denita Wawn, CEO of Master Builders Australia, is one of the most prominent voices in the Australian construction economy. While Master Builders primarily represents builders rather than product manufacturers, Wawn's consistent advocacy on building product costs, supply chain resilience, and the regulatory burden on the construction sector directly affects the environment in which building products manufacturers operate. Her media presence and policy engagement make her one of the most important adjacent voices for anyone tracking the ANZ building products sector.

Davina Rooney, CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia, leads the organisation that administers the Green Star rating system, the most widely used sustainability certification for buildings in Australia. The GBCA's work on embodied carbon, product sustainability declarations, and the decarbonisation of the built environment creates the specification environment in which building products manufacturers compete on sustainability credentials.

Andrew Eagles, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Green Building Council, plays an equivalent role in New Zealand, regularly publishing commentary on low-carbon buildings, green standards, and the policy conditions needed to accelerate sustainable construction.

The leaders profiled in the companion posts on commercial building construction leaders and manufacturing leaders in Australia and New Zealand also contribute significantly to the broader conversation about how the ANZ building environment performs.

Common Mistakes Building Products Organisations Make in Leadership Development

Building products businesses often under-invest in leadership development relative to their investment in product and operational excellence. The assumption, understandable given the technical and operational demands of manufacturing, is that leadership capability is a secondary priority to getting the product right and the supply chain running. In practice, the organisations that consistently outperform their competitors over long time horizons do so because of leadership quality, not just product quality.

The first common mistake is treating senior leadership teams as collections of functional specialists rather than integrated teams. A CFO, a head of manufacturing, a commercial director, and a sustainability lead can each be excellent at their individual disciplines while still producing poor collective outcomes if they do not understand how their different modes of working interact. In the building products sector, where a capital investment decision about a new furnace technology is simultaneously a financial, operational, environmental, and commercial question, integrated leadership teams that think well together across those dimensions are a genuine competitive advantage.

The second mistake is neglecting leadership development during periods of operational intensity. Building products businesses tend to run leadership programs during slow periods, which in cyclical industries means they often go years without structured development. The leaders who emerge strongest from construction downturns are the ones whose organisations invested in capability precisely when the pressure was highest.

The third mistake is promoting deep technical experts into general management roles without adequate support for the transition. Building products organisations contain extraordinary technical depth. The best cement chemists, the most experienced steel mill operators, the most capable product specification engineers are not automatically equipped to lead teams and communicate across functions. Patrick Houlihan's career arc from research chemist to DuluxGroup CEO is genuinely unusual. Most technical experts who move into general management benefit from structured support for the transition.

The fourth mistake is underestimating the people cost of major transformations. Every leader on this list is overseeing or recently completed a significant transformation. Matt McKenzie at Boral is continuing a three-year Good to Great programme. Andrew Reding at Fletcher Building is executing a major portfolio restructuring. Paul Dalton at CSR is integrating one of Australia's most iconic building products businesses into a global group. Robin Davies at New Zealand Steel is managing the largest decarbonisation investment in the country's history. Each of those transformations is a people leadership challenge before it is anything else.

Bring Jonno White into your building products leadership team to facilitate a Working Genius workshop that helps your senior leaders understand where each person's natural energy and genius lies, and how to use that insight to run better meetings, assign work more effectively, and reduce the friction that slows execution. Email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect, and virtual delivery is always available.

Implementation Guide: How to Use This List

The leaders profiled here are not advisers or commentators. They are operating executives and peak body leaders doing consequential work in a demanding sector. The way to use this list is not to follow it passively, but to engage with it actively.

The first step is to follow each person on LinkedIn. The quality of what you will see varies, but the aggregate signal of what the sector's most senior leaders are thinking about, speaking at, and commenting on gives you a genuinely useful window into the issues that are shaping the sector. Tony Dragicevich's posts on Australian manufacturing, energy transition, and the LocAl aluminium product line are specifically informative for anyone working in the sector. Simon Burden's coverage of BIF NZ policy engagements is some of the most direct and accessible reporting on New Zealand building products regulation that exists.

The second step is to track the regulatory and standards conversations that these leaders are driving. The embodied carbon debate, the NCC changes, the New Zealand product register conversation led by Julien Leys, and the decarbonisation road maps being developed at Concrete NZ under Rob Gaimster are the upstream conversations that will determine product specifications, procurement decisions, and competitive positioning in the sector for the next decade.

The third step is to understand what the major corporate transformations mean for the supply chain. The Saint-Gobain acquisition of CSR, Fletcher Building's pivot to a pure-play building materials company, Boral's Good to Great programme, and the BlueScope and NZ Steel decarbonisation investment are all reshaping the competitive landscape for building products manufacturing in ANZ. Each creates disruption and opportunity for the companies that supply, distribute, and specify their products.

The fourth step, if you lead a team inside this sector, is to invest in the leadership capability that allows your organisation to navigate that disruption. The organisations that emerge strongest from this period of structural change will be the ones where the leadership team works well together, communicates clearly under pressure, and executes with discipline and alignment. Jonno White works with teams inside manufacturing and industrial organisations on precisely those capabilities. Email jonno@consultclarity.org or visit consultclarity.org to find out more. Many organisations find that international travel for a facilitation engagement is far more affordable than they expect.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the biggest building products companies in Australia and New Zealand?

The largest building products manufacturers and distributors in Australia and New Zealand include Boral, the largest vertically integrated construction materials company in Australia, now led by CEO Matt McKenzie. CSR, now part of Saint-Gobain, manufactures Gyprock plasterboard, Bradford insulation, and PGH bricks under CEO Paul Dalton. Fletcher Building, led by CEO and MD Andrew Reding, operates across New Zealand and Australia in building products manufacturing, distribution, and retail. DuluxGroup, under Chairman and CEO Patrick Houlihan, produces the Dulux, Selleys, Cabot's, and B&D brands. BlueScope is Australia's largest manufacturer, supplying COLORBOND, ZINCALUME, and LYSAGHT steel products, while New Zealand Steel, led by CEO Robin Davies, is that country's sole flat rolled steel producer. Capral Aluminium, led by MD and CEO Tony Dragicevich, is Australia's largest aluminium extrusion manufacturer.

What challenges are building products leaders facing in 2026?

Building products leaders in 2026 are navigating several simultaneous pressures. Decarbonisation requirements are increasing, with embodied carbon becoming a central metric for major projects and green-certified buildings. Input cost volatility, particularly for energy and raw materials, is compressing margins. In New Zealand, government policy changes are opening the market to more overseas building products, creating competitive pressure for domestic manufacturers. The transition from gas-fired to electrically powered manufacturing processes requires significant capital investment. Supply chain resilience remains a priority following the disruptions of the 2020 to 2024 period.

What is the Building Industry Federation New Zealand and why does it matter for building products?

The Building Industry Federation New Zealand, led by Chief Executive Julien Leys, is the only peak industry body specifically representing New Zealand's building and construction supply chain, from manufacturers and distributors to merchants and hardware suppliers. It matters for building products because it is the primary advocacy body engaging with government on building product compliance, product registers, importation policy, and the regulatory settings that shape how products are manufactured, tested, and used in New Zealand. Its work on a national product register for building materials, and its engagement with the government's recent policy changes opening the market to compliant overseas products, directly affects the competitive environment for every building products manufacturer in New Zealand.

How is decarbonisation changing building products manufacturing in ANZ?

Decarbonisation is one of the most significant forces reshaping building products manufacturing across Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand Steel, led by Robin Davies, is installing an Electric Arc Furnace at Glenbrook from 2026, described as the largest decarbonisation project in New Zealand's industrial history. Concrete NZ, led by Rob Gaimster, is driving a 2050 roadmap for a net zero carbon concrete industry. Capral Aluminium, led by Tony Dragicevich, secured ARENA funding in 2026 to replace a gas-fired furnace with electric technology, lifting energy efficiency from approximately 20 percent to over 90 percent. CSR, now under Saint-Gobain's global low-carbon building materials strategy, is bringing that parent company's decarbonisation expertise to the Australian and New Zealand markets. These transitions are capital-intensive and complex, and they are being managed simultaneously with cyclical demand pressures.

Final Thoughts

Building products leadership in Australia and New Zealand is less visible than it should be given how consequential it is. The leaders on this list are running some of the most significant industrial businesses in the Southern Hemisphere, managing the transitions from carbon-intensive to lower-carbon manufacturing, navigating the complex politics of product compliance and market access, and supplying the materials that underpin the housing and infrastructure agendas that every government in both countries has declared urgent.

The sector's complexity makes it difficult to generalise, but several threads connect the ten leaders profiled here. Every one of them is managing a significant transformation, whether that is a change of ownership, a decarbonisation investment, a supply chain restructure, or a strategic portfolio shift. Every one of them is operating in a market where the regulatory and policy environment is changing faster than at any point in recent memory. And every one of them is doing so with a public profile that, by the standards of industries this economically significant, remains relatively modest.

The people shaping the buildings of the next decade are being shaped themselves right now by the decisions these leaders make about carbon, compliance, capital, and culture. They deserve more attention than the sector typically attracts.

To book Jonno White to facilitate an executive team offsite, a Working Genius workshop, or a leadership keynote for your building products or construction organisation, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world, and works globally including across the building, manufacturing, and industrial sectors.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 240+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected. To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Sources

Australia Bureau of Statistics and U.S. Department of Commerce (trade.gov), building and construction sector data, 2025. Concrete NZ and Global Cement and Concrete Association, net zero concrete industry roadmap and CEO Gathering, 2025. IMARC Group, Australia Building Materials Market Report, 2026. New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Building and Construction Sector data, 2025 and 2026. New Zealand Government (beehive.govt.nz), Building Products Specification document and Minister Penk statements, 2025. Quarry Magazine, Boral CEO appointment, March 2026. Australian Renewable Energy Agency, Capral Aluminium funding announcement, April 2026. Saint-Gobain, CSR acquisition completion announcement, July 2024. Steel & Tube Holdings, NZX filings and annual reporting, 2024.

Next Read

For a broader look at the people shaping how Australia and New Zealand build, see the 50 essential engineering and infrastructure thought leaders.

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-engineering-infrastructure-australia-new-zealand