Dr. David Lees has over 40 years experience in underground construction. He started his career as a mining engineer in South Africa. He returned to the UK in 1988 and worked as a Geotechnical Engineer for Arup on Canary Wharf Project, he was then appointed Design Manager with Babties for Jubillee Line Extension and CrossRail project in London. He was the RE for the stormwater cavern in Jersey before emigrating to Australia with SMEC in 1995. He worked on site on the Elgas Project, was Technical advisor for the New Southern Railway and carried out inspections for Snowy Hydro. In 1999 he started his own consultancy and worked as Design Manager for Delhi Metro and Designer's Representative for Singapore Deep Sewer Tunnel. He joined KBR in 2002 as National Tunnel Manager and was late appointed NSW Civil Manager. He started a contracting company in 2004 Grouting and Foundation works Australia where he carried out foundation grouting for dams, tunnel grouting and sand stabilisation. In 2014 he went to Nepal as Senior Tunnelling Engineer for the Melamchie Water Tunnel and in 2015 was appointed Chief Site Suoervisor for the Uma Oya project in Sri Lanka. He returned to Australia in 2018 and worked on WestConnex M5 and M8 projects before going to India in 2021 as Team Leader on the Rishikesh to Karanprayag Railway Package 7. In 2022 in he was appointed Chief Resident Engineer for the Mahawelli Water Security Investment Program [MWSIP] in Sri Lanka.