Navigating Major Programmes Riccardo Cosentino

In this week’s episode, Riccardo Cosentino and guest co-host, Corail Bourrelier Fabiani, sit down with fellow alumnus Brandon de León to discuss his Oxford Saïd Business School dissertation on electric aviation.

Brandon emphasizes the importance of public perception in adopting new technologies and explores the potential of electric aviation to transform urban mobility. The discussion covers technical advancements, regulatory challenges, and the necessary societal embrace for successful integration of electric aircraft into daily transportation. Brandon's insights highlight the intersection of technology, society, and the future of urban air mobility.

In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo Cosentino sits down with fellow Oxford’s Saïd Business School alumnus, Shawn Modar, to discuss why mega projects go wrong and what can be done contractually to avoid failure. The pair delve into the role psychological contracts play in the Iron Triangle. Plus, Shawn shares his Oxford dissertation findings, including a prenuptial agreement analogy you don’t want to miss.

“One of the interesting realizations that I had during this process is: Why would somebody intentionally not comply with their contract, knowing all those legal risks that are out there? And what I realized is when they're not complying with that written contract, they're actually complying with their psychological contract.” –  Shawn Modar

Are LLMs stochastic parrots or reflection of our own intelligence? In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo Cosentino sits down with Lawrence Rowland for an extremely candid conversation surrounding the adoption of artificial intelligence, in major programmes and beyond. AI skeptics and AI enthusiasts alike, this episode was recorded for you.

“None of us are keeping up, none of us know what the hell is going on. So, if you can kind of just relax and enjoy it happening, you will also help everyone else so much more. Enjoy it. And enjoy what [AI] is telling us about us.” –Lawrence Rowland

In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo Cosentino sits down with Daniel Armanios, BT Professor of Major Programme Management and Chair of Major Programme Management at University of Oxford, Saïd Business School. The pair discuss the importance of research, the type of valuable research and the post evaluation of major programmes.

"And so a second very cool question would be where do we want resilience in a major programme? I mean, obviously you want it within the program but do you want it in the selection process? Maybe not? Do you want it in the post validation where we don't do as well? Maybe not so maybe resilience is not great everywhere. And maybe it's really important in certain places.  I've been really thinking about this a lot because it's a really visceral fundamental point. What is it we're actually doing and trying to achieve?" – Daniel Armanios

In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo Cosentino sits down with Oomar Paurobally, a fellow Oxford alumnus and leader in hospitality megaprojects in South East Asia and Korea, to discuss his dissertation and his unique perspective on the Iron Triangle. The pair cover everything from stakeholder management and the universal complexity of major programmes to the interesting outcomes that can arise from a megaproject's royal flush.



“What we found is that the more you look at an aggregate level, when you're looking at an aggregated industry level, you find that the root causes tend to be the same. So, the same root causes we learned during our programme as areas affecting major infrastructure projects were the same that were impacting our industry, which were stakeholder management processes, product management skills in itself across portfolios; the root causes were similar. But what was really interesting insight was, so what? Now what? So we know, that's a core issue. But what does it really mean to us?” – Oomar Paurobally

In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo Cosentino sits down with Sherena Hussain, lawyer, global thought leader in infrastructure and advisor to new partnership and sustainable finance models, to tackle the complex question: is private capital successful in major programmes?