Darragh Vellerton

Darragh Vellerton · Chief Data Officer · Australia

Leaving the estate owner changed what I brought back to its records.

Chief Data Officer

Branvella Estates

Sector
Office and logistics property ownership
Ownership
Private group; institutional investors 65%, founders 35%
Company scale
A$510 million company rental income and A$7.6 billion gross property assets in FY 2025–26
Employees
820 company employees at October 2026
Geography
Brisbane headquarters; Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth
Reporting to
Chief Executive Officer
Team
74 data colleagues through five direct reports at October 2026
Financial scope
A$12.6 million delegated FY 2026–27 function expense; property investment, leasing, valuation and operating mandates separate

Mandate

Maintain traceable relationships between changing spaces and the records used to describe their current and historical position.

Outcomes

  • Retired forty-eight former units from the current count while mapping them to ninety-seven lease areas in 2023.
  • Separated signed and commenced agreement populations in the 2021 leasing account.
  • Withheld a uniform 30 June valuation label from the mixed-date 2025 portfolio review.

Decisions in context

The current remit concerns the connections between records that can otherwise make a property appear more settled than its evidence. A space mapping, a lease-status account and a valuation date each require a different explanation. I lead the data colleagues maintaining those relationships, while surveying, leasing, valuation, finance and operating owners retain their professional decisions. Board presentations began as part of this executive appointment; no statutory-director service is claimed. Company assets and rental income describe Branvella’s scale rather than my own investment authority. I want the team to make a current view usable without removing the history needed to understand it. That can mean keeping an earlier identifier, a future commencement or an older assessment visible in the right account, even when a single clean headline would be easier to present.

Reason for the move

Appointed CDO after returning to Branvella and leading asset information; current role.

Head of asset information

Branvella Estates

Sector
Property asset information
Ownership
Private estate-owning group
Company scale
A$340 million company rental income and A$5.1 billion gross property assets in FY 2018–19
Employees
650 company employees in FY 2018–19
Geography
Australian office and logistics properties; information leadership in Brisbane
Reporting to
Executive responsible for portfolio operations
Team
51 asset-information colleagues through five direct reports in FY 2018–19
Financial scope
A$7.8 million annual function expense in FY 2018–19; surveying, leasing and valuation decisions separately led

Mandate

Preserve the basis and source history of property information used across portfolio accounts.

Outcomes

  • Retained the distinct 22000-square-metre external-extent and 18000-square-metre lease-schedule accounts in 2017.
  • Withdrew the unsupported interpretation that their difference represented missing space.
  • Completed A$1.7 million data work without claiming new lettable area or a valuation change.

Decisions in context

Returning to Branvella brought the project-document lesson into an estate-owner context. I was more alert to a record that looked current or precise but did not establish the interpretation attached to it. The area review showed that reconciliation could require preserving different definitions rather than forcing two values to match. I wanted the source, purpose and responsible owner available to a reader who would otherwise see only a discrepancy. The role involved collaboration with surveying and leasing specialists, not replacement of their judgement. The company’s asset value and rental income provided context for the work, while my delegated expense funded the data function. This period helped me connect the history of a document or definition with the recurring portfolio decisions that relied on it, preparing the wider CDO remit without erasing the boundaries of the supporting role.

Reason for the move

Promoted to CDO as responsibility expanded across the group’s connected property evidence.

Director of project information

Ternavell Infrastructure

Sector
Infrastructure project delivery and information coordination
Ownership
Private project-delivery company
Company scale
A$680 million company revenue in FY 2012–13
Employees
1250 company employees in FY 2012–13
Geography
Australia; project-information function based in Brisbane
Reporting to
Chief Operating Officer
Team
39 project-information colleagues through four direct reports in FY 2012–13
Financial scope
A$4.1 million annual function expense in FY 2012–13; design approval, engineering and construction safety outside this delegation

Mandate

Maintain an intelligible document account for projects with changing revisions and responsible approvals.

Outcomes

  • Accepted responsibility for the 2009 latest-upload assumption applied to ninety-six floor plans.
  • Identified twenty-eight superseded versions through the revision-register review.
  • Supported A$480000 correction that retained approved references and source status rather than infer approval from file order.

Decisions in context

This move took me out of the estate owner and into the documentary history created during project work. It broadened my experience, but the floor-plan selection also exposed an assumption I had approved too readily. Upload order was easy to explain and maintain; it was not evidence of approval. Evan Tarswell’s revision check made that gap visible. I wanted the correction to preserve the source of document status, including the limits of what the review had checked. The director title was an executive employment role, with no statutory appointment. I did not approve engineering designs or certify building conditions. The experience changed how I approached a current-looking file and was a principal reason to return to property information, where the consequences of documentary choices continue long after a project team has finished.

Reason for the move

Returned to Branvella to apply project-information experience to continuing asset records.

Property-data Lead

Branvella Estates

Sector
Office and logistics property records
Ownership
Private founder-established estate owner
Company scale
A$92 million company rental income and A$1.4 billion gross property assets in FY 2005–06
Employees
290 company employees in FY 2005–06
Geography
Australia; property-data team based in Brisbane
Reporting to
Head of portfolio information
Team
18 property-data colleagues through three direct reports in FY 2005–06
Financial scope
A$920000 annual function expense in FY 2005–06; no investment or lease-negotiation authority

Mandate

Maintain definitions used repeatedly in the owner’s property and commercial records.

Outcomes

  • Connected recurring property records to the source definitions used by their owners.
  • Distinguished a shared address from evidence that two records described the same object.
  • Sought project-information experience to understand how documents entered the continuing asset account.

Decisions in context

The first Branvella appointment gave me continuing responsibility for definitions inside the organisation using them. I could no longer regard a record as adequately explained because it had been clear in an earlier analytical delivery. A building, a lease area and a commercial agreement might share an address without becoming the same entity. I wanted those relationships preserved as reports were repeated and extended. The team and expense delegation were limited to property data; negotiations and investment decisions remained elsewhere. I became interested in information created before an asset reached routine reporting, particularly the documents whose status later users might assume rather than examine. Leaving for Ternavell was therefore a deliberate broadening of experience. It interrupted a simple internal promotion story but supplied a different setting in which my own assumptions would be tested.

Reason for the move

Moved to Ternavell to broaden experience in the project-document processes preceding asset operations.

Spatial Analyst

Kelverune Spatial

Sector
Spatial-information analysis and advisory work
Ownership
Private spatial-information firm
Company scale
A$7.4 million company fee revenue in 2000
Employees
52 company employees in 2000
Geography
Australia; analytical work delivered from Brisbane
Reporting to
Assignment lead
Team
Spatial analyst within an eight-colleague team; no direct reports
Financial scope
The role carried neither delegated expenditure nor a line-management remit

Mandate

Understand which location, boundary and source each property-related record represents.

Outcomes

  • Examined the relationship between location labels and the objects represented by source records.
  • Traced analytical findings to the definitions and evidence used in their construction.
  • Developed an interest in maintaining those relationships within a property owner.

Decisions in context

I began after completing spatial-information study in December 1993. My early work concerned the meaning of a record before its use in a comparison: what it referred to, which boundary was relevant and how the source established that relationship. I worked under an assignment lead within an eight-person group, without management or spending authority. The qualification is part of the fictional educational chronology, not a claim to a professional surveying registration. The experience made me interested in the way ordinary location labels can hide different objects. It also made an in-house role attractive, because I wanted to follow those definitions into repeated use rather than finish with an analytical handover. The later size of Branvella belongs to later appointments; this period supplies the beginning of the question, not an inflated early version of the current CDO remit.

Reason for the move

Joined Branvella to take responsibility for recurring property data inside the institution using it.

What I am looking for next

I would like a future contribution to involve a property institution that wants to understand how its records relate before relying on a portfolio conclusion. The question may concern a changing space, a document whose approval is unclear or a value whose date differs from the rest of the account. I could help a board or senior team ask for the evidence needed to distinguish those conditions, while respecting the surveying, valuation, legal and operating expertise required to interpret them.

For a first statutory seat I would need employer agreement, preparation and a review of relevant property, supplier and project relationships. Twenty-four annual days would be provisional, with induction and exceptional demands considered for the actual role. This invented chronology contains no current directorship. A real next chapter would require verified appointments and permission to discuss the underlying examples. I would approach another institution with the willingness to learn why its records developed as they did, rather than assume that the same labels imply the same problem or that an earlier correction supplies a ready-made answer.