Meet Civik’s new CEO

Chris Fortnam has been appointed the new CEO of Civik. We sat down with him to learn more about his background and vision for the social enterprise.

For Chris Fortnam it’s fair to say telco runs in his blood. 

The new CEO of Civik, who joins the organisation from long-term partner Ventia, began his career in the industry straight out of high school. 

“My father and two of my uncles were 25-year Telstra veterans. My mum got crook when we were young, and my dad and one of my uncles resigned so they could start their own business and get a bit more flexibility to help mum,” the father-of-two recalls. 

“At the time I was just coming out of high school. I was playing football, and I was on an AFL list as a sub-list player. I was looking for a job that accommodated my training schedule. 

“My dad’s business became the way that I was able to play footy and get employed. Then it just grew. The more I learnt about it, the better I got at it, and the more passionate I became about the telecommunications industry.” 

While Chris has done other things over the years, including a stint overseas, he says he always found his way back to telco.  

“I love the diversity of what you can do within the industry,” he says. “It’s a very broad spectrum of skills and talents, things you can learn, different projects, different architectures, it just gives you a good variety. It has led me in heaps of different directions. I really enjoy it.” 

The industry has now led him to the social enterprise sector. 

His new role at Civik marks the first time he has worked for a social enterprise. While he acknowledges the sector is somewhat unfamiliar to him, it was the organisation’s purpose that most attracted him to the role.  

Chris is looking forward to working with the team and receiving the support of the board to learn as much as possible. He hopes to combine his new insights with his construction knowledge to lead the organisation forward. 

“To be honest it’s probably the factor that sealed the deal for me,” he said. 

“The idea of being able to really impact communities in a positive way and present opportunities to people who might not otherwise get them is really appealing. Particularly having that as a metric of success, rather than simply how much money you make.” 

Chris’ appointment comes as the social enterprise, which works with large corporates to help fulfill their labour hire shortages in regional areas, while creating jobs for people shut out from mainstream employment, approaches its one-year anniversary. 

To-date Civik has achieved terrific success in creating job outcomes, with an ambitious goal of creating 250 jobs by 2026 across Australia. The social enterprise is about to break ground on a new site in Townsville. 

Former GM and co-founder of Civik Dominiqe Bird said Chris's appointment was a significant milestone for the company.  

“We’re thrilled to bring on Chris at such a pivotal point in Civik’s journey,” Dominiqe said.  

“We’ve come a long way over the past year, but there’s plenty of hard work ahead to reach the scale we’re hoping for.  

“I look forward to Civik's continued growth under Chris’ leadership to build new capabilities, access new contracts, and ultimately create more jobs for those who need them the most.” 

Chris's previous roles include working at Fulton Hogan, where he was part of the core team that launched their first telecommunications venture in Melbourne. He later worked for Controltech Solutions, where he contributed to significant growth in the company. 

“That was very similar to where Civik is now,” Chris says. 

“There were seven or eight people, and it was really reliant on one part of construction to make its money. But it grew from a small team doing pit installs and a little bit of trenching, to when I moved on they had 14 or 15 vac trucks, a couple of civil crews and a couple of directional drills.” 

He hopes to see Civik grow in a similar fashion. 

“There are a lot of opportunities in construction at the moment. The skills in civil and telco sectors are transferable to other construction areas. I’m pretty optimistic we can get there with a lot of hard work,” he says.  

“We’ve got to get some more good people involved. The guys that we’ve got they are really committed. I’ve already picked that up. They’ve all got great stories, and they seem to be very grateful and very committed to do the work. But we need to top that up with other guys that are experienced as well, so that they are well supported, and they can grow their skill base.” 

Looking ahead, Chris emphasises the importance of balancing skills and experience to support Civik's mission. 

“So we can support the people who the business is actually formed around,” he says.  

“The business needs to generate enough revenue to support itself and to maintain growth so we can provide more opportunities for more people.” 

In the short term, he says the priority is to consolidate the good work that has been done already. 

But in the longer term, he believes there are some strong opportunities, particularly with Ventia’s support.  

“Ventia has a big footprint across the country in many different areas of construction, and that’s really exciting, because a lot of the stuff we’ll be teaching these guys is transferable into other sectors,” Chris said. 

“Long term I would love to see most regional hubs across the country where Ventia contracts exist being supported by Civik, and then hopefully branching out further than that and expanding our client base from there.  

“I can see it being very successful.”