BSc(Hons), MEng (Fire Engineering), Grad.Dip(Econ)
With more than two decades of fire engineering experience across New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the Middle East, Christian brings global expertise and technical depth to every project he’s involved in. His diverse career has seen him take on complex, high-profile challenges—including serving as Lead Fire Engineer for the USD $8B Dubai Metro—alongside shaping policy, research, and innovative fire safety practices in the built environment.
Christian’s approach is truly interdisciplinary. With qualifications in fire engineering, economics, and chemistry, as well as self-taught legal knowledge, he tackles compliance and design challenges through unique lenses, often uncovering underutilised legal pathways for performance-based fire solutions. His research has been published internationally on topics like combustible cladding and regulatory reform, and he has presented to Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee, with his recommendations adopted by the Minister for Building and Construction and elevated to Cabinet.
At Kirk Roberts, Christian is focused on solving complex compliance issues and applying strategic thinking that challenges the status quo—all while aligning with our mission to find better ways. Christian also leads Kirk Roberts’ Development Compliance and Advisory service offering—helping building owners and developers achieve faster, smarter and more cost-effective Building Consents. In today’s complex regulatory and environmental landscape, decisions made at concept stage can make or break a project. Christian brings early-stage clarity to the consenting pathway before design is locked in, improving cost certainty, reducing redesign risk, and providing confident guidance through legal obligations to support stronger economic outcomes.
With deep knowledge of the Building Act 2004, Christian is known for identifying and leveraging underutilised rights and options available to applicants—turning compliance from a bottleneck into an opportunity. Supported by his background as a qualified economist and his extensive experience in regulatory analysis (including submissions and appearances before Parliamentary Select Committees), his approach translates into tangible time and cost savings through smarter consent strategies, risk mitigation, and better coordination across multi-discipline inputs for smoother delivery from concept to consent.
Christian is based in our Christchurch office.