AJCONWAY.INFO Interim Website – profile, publications and selected resources

Professor Tony Conway

Strategic Water Consulting

Helping shape the water utility of the future through innovation, optimisation, digital capability and leadership.

Innovation • Systems thinking • Digital capability • Leadership and change

Download featured resource How NOT to Collaboratively Innovate Contact Tony

Profile

About Tony Conway

Tony Conway is a former water utility Executive Director and a Visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield. Across a career of more than 40 years in the water sector, he has led asset management, operations, engineering and major transformation programmes.

Today, Tony provides independent strategic advice to organisations across the sector, from global businesses and water utilities to supply-chain organisations and early-stage innovators. Bringing a systems-thinking perspective, his work focuses on innovation, collaboration, digital capability, leadership of change and the continuing evolution of the water utility of the future.

AJConway.info is being developed into a fuller online platform for Tony Conway's strategic work, publications, projects and insights. The current site provides an introduction to his work and access to a selected range of publications, resources and recent activity.

Featured resource

Utility Week Live, 19 May 2026

Tony's Utility Week Live session on collaborative innovation was accompanied by this short pamphlet with big ideas.

Pamphlet · 2026 Cover: How NOT to Collaboratively Innovate in the Water Industry — by Professor Tony Conway with Professor Kamal Birdi

How NOT to Collaboratively Innovate in the Water Industry

A short pamphlet with big ideas.

A modestly irreverent pamphlet which seeks to shine a light on collaborative innovation by looking through the alternative lens of how to be world-class at preventing it.

Its tongue-in-cheek top tips adopt a humorous approach to provide insight and prompt reflection on what helps collaborative innovation succeed.

A 10-minute read offering a deliberately different perspective on collaborative innovation.

This pamphlet is linked to Tony's Utility Week Live session on collaborative innovation.

Download the pamphlet PDF · opens in new tab

Further selected content

Resources on digital transformation, collaborative innovation and the water utility of the future

A small selection of recent thought pieces and research-based guides.

Foresight note

The Evolving Water Utility Through a Digital Lens

Selected themes and directions of travel for the evolving water utility, viewed through a digital lens.

Explores digital capability, legitimacy, risk intelligence, systems thinking, transparency, investment logic and digitally driven change.

Download PDF

Industry guide · Edition 1

Collaborative Innovation in the Water Industry — How to Make It Happen

A research-based guide to creating the right environment for successful collaborative innovation projects in the water industry.

Edition 2 is due for publication in 2026.

Download Edition 1 PDF

Speaking and sector engagement

Diriyah Executive Leadership Forum

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia · February 2026 · A Water Academy programme.

Transformational change, adaptive leadership and the evolving role of leaders

Tony was pleased to contribute to the delivery of the Diriyah Executive Leadership Forum, a Water Academy programme held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in February 2026.

His contribution focused on transformational change, adaptive leadership, strategic leadership in a digital age, and the evolving role of leaders.

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Contact

Get in touch

To discuss a strategic challenge, potential project, speaking engagement or opportunity to collaborate, please get in touch by email.

[email protected]

Strategic advice · Thought leadership · Leadership and Change · Speaking · Sector Engagement

United Kingdom · Engaging Nationally and Internationally