Mr. Vaughan Coffey

Vaughan qualified in the U.K. as an architect in 1977 and after working in practice in York and for a major housing association in Liverpool, came to the Hong Kong Housing Department in 1982. Vaughan was the architect on 3 major projects at Tsing Yi Island before being promoted as Technical Secretary in 1988, where he was responsible for setting up the Housing Authority List of Building Contractors. He was a founder member of the team that established the Performance Assessment Scoring System (PASS) in 1990 and is currently the Senior Manager of the Housing Department's PASS Control Unit. In 1998, Vaughan was awarded a Master of Science degree in Quality Management from the University of Paisley, United Kingdom and became a member of the Institute of Quality Management, UK. Vaughan regularly lectures on construction practice and general/project management topics at the Hong Kong University and has over the past few years, also presented lectures in Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, Philippines, Korea and Malaysia.

Vaughan joined the Hong Kong Institute of Value Management in 1997 and was elected to the HKIVM Council as Training & Accreditation Member in 2000 and is also a member of the Society of American Value Engineers.

Vaughan is currently engaged in research into the 'organizational culture' of construction companies, as part of the Doctor of Business Administration programme he is undertaking, which is jointly being run between Curtin University, Perth, Australia and Lingnan University, Hong Kong.

Mr. Richard Lyall

Richard Lyall is a qualified Value Management Facilitator registered on the Works Bureau Approved List of VM Facilitators, and is a Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Value Management, responsible for organising lunch meetings and other social and promotional events.

He is a Chartered Engineer with more than sixteen years experience in the construction industry, eight of which have been spent in Hong Kong. His background as an engineer began in structural engineering in London, where he worked on a number of complex new build and refurbishment projects. He has since worked on many major civil engineering projects in London and Portugal, with the majority of his experience since 1992 in Hong Kong managing large multi-disciplinary projects.

He is now head of project management services in WS Atkins Hong Kong office. His specific role includes management of major projects, training staff in project management services, facilitation of value and risk workshops, and setting up project management systems for major projects. He also manages business risk for Atkins in Hong Kong in his strategic management capacity with the company.

Dr. Frederik Pretorius

Frederik Pretorius is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Real Estate and Construction at The University of Hong Kong, where he lectures real estate finance. He has worked in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as academic, professional, in the corporate sector and as consultant, in various activities and industries including building, mining and process engineering, real estate development and regional economic development. He has also participated in the conduct of several value management studies of building and infrastructure projects. Before joining the Department of Real Estate and Construction at the University of Hong Kong, he lectured at the University of Canberra in Australia, and previously at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Dr Pretorius has a Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong and MBA and BSc (QS) degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand.