Company Director Matthew Tognetti travels between Sydney and Perth running a successful specialist recruitment firm.

From a family of professors, performers and potters Tognetti’s choice of profession, Engineering, appeared a bit radical. Luckily it came with a hard hat.

Upon graduating from Sydney University in 1992 Tognetti moved directly into the world of civil infrastructure working as a site engineer on water projects in the Blue Mountains. The early 90’s was a challenging time for the construction industry and while Tognetti maintained continuous employment, his project commitments required him to relocate his young family on more than one occasion to regional centres throughout NSW and Victoria.

A natural networker, Tognetti maintains contacts with colleagues from when he worked as a rigger and scaffolder in Newcastle after the 1989 earthquakes to one of his last projects managing a site team in Darling Harbour. In between, Tognetti expanded his project knowledge, and his connections, by working with teams on variety of construction projects including building, deep foundations, rail, ports, coal terminals and large water sewerage and water supply projects.

Notable projects include a $400M Coal Handling & Marine Project Newcastle, $100M water treatment plant in Sydney, deep piling foundation for a Sydney highrise and a Water Intake Station on the Murray River.

As a result, requests for referrals of people became common - inspiring Tognetti to start his own business, building a recruitment agency in 2002.

Adding senior technical recruiters to the team drove the company’s early success, penetrating the building, construction, civil infrastructure and consulting engineering sectors from Sydney to Brisbane and Perth. Sound management in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis saw the company survive the tough market affecting all of us - outside the education revolution project pipeline. Happily, Tognetti Consulting is back in growth mode and the team is stronger than ever.

With long term relationships, extensive industry knowledge and commitment to achieve, Matthew Tognetti and Tognetti Consulting have become well respected in the construction & engineering niche.

Qualifications: Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering; Bachelor of Science majoring in pure Mathematics and Physics

Coolest Job: enjoying the best view in town working as a rigger from atop the north western pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Strangest Job: crawling inside the fumigation pipeline system at the Port Kembla Grain Terminal with a mask, an airbrush, a torch and a lot of trust

Best Job: Starting up my own consulting

Motto: In life, happiness and success are not destinations, they are modes of travel