Venket has approximately 45 years’ experience in port and maritime civil engineering, specialising in planning and design of ports and maritime structures and infrastructure, managing major port projects and studies. He has worked on the planning, design, documentation, construction supervision and management of a wide range of ports, harbours and marine facilities in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific, South-East Asia and the Middle East. Venket has been Design Manager, Lead Maritime Engineer, Project Manager or Project Director for Defence, AusAID, Asian Development Bank and other major port projects over the past 20 years. He was the Port Specialist and Project Manager for preparation of the master plan, functional and preliminary design for the Redevelopment of the Webb Dock Precinct to 2035, and responsible for preparing of Masterplan and preliminary design for the Samalaju Port Project in East Malaysia to handle dry-bulk, containers and general cargo (estimated to cost over $1.5b).

In addition, Venket has been the Lead Maritime Engineer and Project Director for the rehabilitation and upgrade of the commercial wharves of the Port of Melbourne to extend the useful life of the structures by thirty years.

He was also the technical Advisor to the Port of Melbourne Corporation for the tender and construction phases of these wharf projects, which was completed in 2009, addressing the challenges of this project relating to constructability in an operating environment.