In Person: Dennis Lenard

When Dennis Lenard first came over from Australia to Britain a few years ago, a cartoon caught his eye. "The first thing I saw was Bob the Builder," says the new chief executive of Constructing Excellence, with wonder in his eyes. "I just thought: this is our future. They all wear helmets on site, they're all multiskilled, and they've got the site staff and equipment organised - it's the ideal site."

If you're concerned that the body formed by the merger of Rethinking Construction and Construction Best Practice has just appointed a toddler as their first chief executive, think again. Lenard, a stocky former prop forward and native of Sydney, is a highly educated academic and a successful businessman. Most importantly, he's a genuine proponent of image change in the construction industry.

"The reason training is suffering in the construction industry is that it's just not appealing enough," he says bluntly. "If you're a parent sitting down with your son or daughter, you're not going to send them into the construction industry, because you think they're all dodgy plumbers coming round to stuff up your house. That's the problem - we're not marketing what we're on about."

What he is on about is showing that the sector is a good career choice. "The capability of this industry is unbelievable. Construction leads economies in most of the world's nations. We drive success. But we sell it as a dangerous and dirty activity, which it's not."

But Lenard wants change in technical delivery as well. "We've got to raise the amount of off-site production substantially," he says. "Buildings are made of components and systems that can be standardised but give scope for creativity. We've got to move away from trade-based to systems-based activities."

The 52-year-old knows his stuff. At the mention of a recent opinion piece by John Smith in Building (12 September, page 29), he nods in recognition. The piece was an attack on the "pious hopes and empty dreams" of most Egan initiatives, and concluded that "Rethinking Construction has the same relevance to workers on site as a discussion of Shakespeare has to the family cat". Ouch.

To his credit, Lenard doesn't duck this point, or claim that his cat can recite Othello. His PR firm wanted to put out a rebuttal to the article, but he thought it made a legitimate point. "Mr Smith was encountering some medium-sized contractors, still very much driving their Mercedes-Benz or Jaguars, while the poor old subbie's turning up with the old broken-down Ute and the shovel. He's seeing that those sorts of things are not changing." The fundamental point, he says, is that the industry fails to treat people with respect – it tries to extract the most work for the least money to keep its shareholders happy.

Lenard's career has pulled off the Kylie Minogue trick of early success followed by sustained achievement. He studied civil engineering and then construction management and economics at Sydney University, but ended up working part-time because of the success he was making of project management: when he was just 22, the Australian government asked him to help with the finances on a large set of scientific laboratories in the northern suburbs of Sydney.

He eventually graduating with a "high distinction, first-class honours and all that stuff", and was then invited to do a master's thesis on a mathematical approach to winning tenders. After that, he set up housebuilder Cheltan and developer DenLea with zero equity. He made a mint and then cannily sold it on before the crash of 1998.

Construction leads economies in most of the world’s nations. We drive success. But we sell it as a dangerous, dirty activity

This made him the perfect choice for the poms. As Peter Rogers, chairman of Constructing Excellence, puts it: "We wanted someone who could talk to the contractors but also be convincing in a more academic role. Dennis fitted the bill – he's our Jon Rouse."

Lenard's big idea can be summed up in one word: infrastructure. He wants Constructing Excellence to have a "major role" in providing infrastructure, and he has a way to sell it: asset value growth.

"The next wave of development is going to be in infrastructure," he says. "Only it's not going to be funded through public–private partnerships but by the community. Once you get across that [the infrastructure] is having an exponential effect on their property values, then they will look at it in a different way."

Lenard also has plans for the infrastructure of Constructing Excellence itself. The organisation is to have three streams – innovation, best practice and productivity. "We'll be much closer to the research community to identify advanced processes of technology," he says. "We have to move beyond just collaborative working and partnering toward more technical solutions. Partnering's still a focus, though, as a lot of the industry still doesn't do it."

He also wants the balance of power on site to shift. "There are times in the project delivery process when services engineers will know more about it than anybody else," he says. "There are times when feasibility specialists will know more about that project, and times when architect will control design issues."

Lenard is planning more in-depth best practice demonstrations and is also looking to work with the universities of Reading and Manchester to compile a progress report on competitiveness. "We have all those general economic studies but we don't have one specific to construction," he says.

All this activity will require swanky new offices, with receptions to showcase Constructing Excellence. Funding for this will have to come from the private sector: government cash is reserved for the three programmes.