His current research focuses on complexity and chaos, resilience, decision/judgment theory, foresighting/backcasting, sustainability, governance, post anthropocene design, and ethics. Ron is a Chartered Professional Engineer, a registered international ‘Ingenieur’ and is a former board member of Institution of Professional Engineers NZ, and a Professional Member of the Royal Society. Ron was awarded an OBE for services to science for his work with the UN.
His international experience with world agencies includes facilitating many interagency negotiations, conferences, and workshops. Ron has consulted internationally to more than thirty governments along with the World Bank and most United Nations agencies.
Ron was a specialist scientist engineer working in the area of sustainable development in developing countries and has traveled the world on more than 140 major UN Food and Agriculture Organisation missions. He has more than 30 years of industrial consulting engineering and management experience with many industry sector groups.
Ron is a well-established and recognised international expert on complex systems, the decision sciences and sustainability, from both technical, engineering and business points of view. He has presented courses, and talks all around the world, covering high-stakes decision making and executive judgment for hundreds of senior executives.