Opinion

New G-MW leader

By Contributed

Aug 18, 2026

It’s a privilege to step into the role of managing director at Goulburn-Murray Water, Australia’s largest rural water corporation, and to lead an organisation that plays such an important role in northern Victoria.

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I’ve only been in the role for just over a month but my early impressions are how professional, competent, capable and outcomes-driven our staff are. I’ve also enjoyed my early meetings with our customers, including at our recent Customer Committee Annual Summit in Kialla.

The summit took place before my official start at G-MW and gave me a great opportunity to meet some of our customers and to hear about some of the issues that matter most to them.

As I meet more customers and staff, a key point keeps resurfacing in my conversations with them: that my predecessor Charmaine Quick had a profoundly positive impact as G’MW’s managing director for seven and a half years.

I am keen to build upon her fantastic work and to ensure G-MW’s foundations remain strong. Like Ms Quick, I’m an engineer and a local. I’ve been living in northern Victoria since 2020. For those who don’t know me, I’m also familiar with how important water is to this region.

Prior to joining G-MW, I served as Goulburn Valley Water’s managing director for five and a half years.

Water plays a significant role in northern Victoria’s prosperity and it’s incredibly important that remains the case. This is a crucial point I will keep highlighting whenever I can.

Before moving to northern Victoria, I was an executive manager at Water Corporation in Western Australia, where I led regional operations and service delivery for a number of years.

Overall, I spent almost 18 years at Water Corporation in Western Australia. My 23 years in the urban water industry, and my time at G-MW so far, has helped highlight a key point to me: many of the challenges facing the urban water industry are directly relatable to the rural water industry.

These challenges include impacts of a changing climate, and ensuring pricing affordability and reliability of water supply for customers.

I look forward to taking these challenges head-on at G-MW. I also look forward to continuing to meet the needs of our customers and communities and to maintain our vision of water for a thriving northern Victoria.

— Steve Capewell