2024 UDIA SA Awards for Excellence winner Annie Russell has found her happy place project managing large residential developments.

Annie Russell is in her own words “exactly where she needs to be” in her career, even if she admits to not taking the most direct route.

The winner of the 2024 UDIA SA Stuart Main – Young Leader award sponsored by Holmes Dyer is the development manager at Villawood Properties, overseeing two big subdivisions in Adelaide’s north and inner south.

“When I started out in planning, I did a couple of different jobs trying to figure out what I was interested in early on in my career,” explains Annie, whose expertise spans resident land division, urban design, place-making and property development planning and delivery.

After graduating with honours from her urban and regional planning degree, Annie relocated to Sydney and worked as a graduate planner on medium- and high-density projects at urban development consultancy Mecone.

“I was really excited to propel my career from the get go and get stuck into some of those really complicated, large scale projects,” she says.

“After a couple of years over there, it was a bit of a reality check for me – discovering how difficult it is to live in a city outside of Adelaide, from a cost-of-living perspective and distance from family.”

Calling her decision to return to Adelaide, “a bit of a 180”, she appreciates Adelaide’s livability and career opportunities. “Especially in the last couple of years, since covid, it’s been a great time to be back in the city, because there’s so many exciting things happening, so much growth. It was good timing, in retrospect, to come back.”

On her return, she worked as a development assessment officer at Mount Barker District Council. “It was very fast paced; the team there was really great at managing the volume of work and the high-level strategic planning needed to make sure that all the infrastructure and other elements of a growing city were being considered.”

She says working as a planner in a council you learn the other side of the industry, the public sector side, and get an understanding of the pressures they’re under to make certain decisions.

“It’s about representing the community of that council area and having their best interests at heart. It was quite helpful to understand that and be on that side of the fence before [working in] the private sector side.”

She then moved to the private sector, working as a town planner at Fyfe, before Villawood approached her to take on an assistant development manager role.

The company had just expanded into Adelaide and a recommendation from an ex-colleague at Mount Barker District Council put her on Villawood’s radar.

“He knew I was interested in getting into project management,” she explains, adding that at the time she was studying a graduate certificate in project management. “I was really lucky my name got thrown into the mix and I had Villawood reach out to me directly to offer an opportunity.”

Annie with Nitsan Taylor from Holmes Dyer, the sponsor of the award. Annie is now eligible to be recognised among her national peers as she is shortlisted for the 2025 UDIA National Awards for Excellence to be held in Brisbane in March 2025.

Annie says she loved working in urban planning. “But after I got into the field, I felt like I wanted to have just one project that was my own, that I could work on full time, rather than spreading my resources out across different projects in the planning approvals space.”

Her first project with Villawood has been the 700 lot St Andrews development at Andrews Farm in Adelaide’s northern suburbs.

“That’s been a really great project to work on because, as a greenfield development, it’s as straightforward as they come,” she says. “It’s coming along really nicely as the first project that Villawood had up and running in SA … and now we’ve got our first residents living there.”

Her biggest challenge – and source of pride – has been overseeing the civil construction components, the infrastructure and roads, without the benefit of having an engineering background.

“Sometimes, I have felt a little out of place, pulling up on site,” she says.

“I’m lucky we’ve got a really good superintendency and engineering team at [civil contractor] Greenhill to lead those meetings and educate me along the way about all the intricacies of delivery.

“I’ve come a long way in terms of understanding that side of things and being confident in that space.

“As well, I’ve got a fantastic leadership team at Villawood, who are very invested in my growth and always willing to help me make decisions or give advice on what to do.”

In Annie’s nomination for the 2024 UDIA SA Stuart Main – Young Leader award, her colleague Ben Moore called her “a great example of the next generation of leaders in the development industry”.

Last year, Villawood announced it would be entering into a $350 million joint venture with superannuation fund Hostplus and the South Australian Jockey Club to develop The Quarter, a housing infill project near Morphettville Racecourse. Annie is excited about running the project and overseeing all the stages from design and planning, to construction, handover and settlements.

“It’s townhouses and apartments, so a little more complicated than my St Andrews project,” Annie says, adding, “I think it’s a good and timely step to take on something more challenging in my career.”

As a member of the UDIA SA’s Young Professionals Group, she’s benefitting from the additional experiences and knowledge sharing offered to the group of young industry go-getters. This includes mentoring, hearing from senior people in the industry and project site visits.

“We also do an informal drink session, just to catch up together to see what everyone’s up to with their projects,” Annie says.

“It’s really uplifting to meet other people who are on a similar journey to me and will be working alongside me in the future.”

See the full list of the 2024 UDIA SA Awards for Excellence winners here.