Meet the Innovator: Phillip Christensen

Find out what it is like to found, grow, sell and manage your company within a global engineering software firm.

CORE's Meet the Innovator series connects you to innovators in the resources and energy sector, sharing insights about their business, professional journey and global opportunities. It is your opportunity to ask questions and meet some of the brightest minds in the sector.

Our guest Innovator for August is Phillip Christensen, Senior Vice President at Bentley Systems, a global leader in software solutions for infrastructure engineering. Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 3,500 colleagues in over 50 countries, and is on track to surpass annual revenue of $700 million. Since 2012, Bentley has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

Phil began his journey as an innovator in 1987 as the Founder & Managing Director of FormSys, managing software development for naval architecture, shipbuilding, structural engineering and offshore engineering in Fremantle, Western Australia. Phil joined US-based Bentley Systems in 2011 after the company’s acquisition of FormSys, as part of Bentley’s expansion into the offshore market. In 2011, at a point when Phil believed the company had achieved as much as it could as a small business, he flew to the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston and pitched to Bentley Systems. Months later, Formsys was acquired by Bentley but was able to maintain its innovative R&D base in Fremantle.

“As Formsys, we were an engineering software company. Now that we are a part of Bentley, we’re a pipe-stress simulation company, a water network simulation company, a full simulation company. That means we are now able to do some things in other areas. This is kind of a big deal because of the whole evolution away from the desktop and toward cloud computing and mobile devices. I think people are underestimating how big an impact it is going to have, and we are only at the very early stages of it. So the question becomes, ‘What can you do when you have 250 times more compute power than you had yesterday?’ That’s what we are talking about. That’s what our cloud services are all about.”

Phil is passionate about building engineering software products and businesses especially graphical, computational or analytical. He has led Bentley's Reality Modeling Advancement Team, as well as helped guide the business and technical development of a number of new cloud services and market strategies for India, Australia & New Zealand. He was appointed Senior Vice President of Reality Modelling and Cloud Services in 2017 and leads the development of new cloud services for mobile access to analysis models, and scenario services for design optioneering. Phil holds a Bachelor of Engineering from The University of Auckland (Theoretical & Applied Mechanics) and a Master of Engineering Science from The University of Western Australia.

This event includes drinks and networking. Tickets are $25, free for CORE Members.