Carolyn O'Fallon

Carolyn led her own consultancy, Pinnacle Research & Policy Limited, for 15+ years, with a focus on land transport and infrastructure. She has recognised expertise in economics, research, public policy and strategy development and implementation, investment policy development, assurance processes and practices, cost-benefit analysis (including developing procedures for undertaking economic evaluation as part of business cases) and economic and outcomes evaluation. 

Carolyn is an 'all-rounder', as demonstrated by the variety of projects she has led and worked on. These include:

• kickstarting the walking school bus movement in New Zealand by developing a user-friendly method of “networking” a school
• leading the cross-agency economic and outcomes evaluations of the Prime Minister’s Youth Mental Health Project (Superu, 2016)
  https://thehub.swa.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/1YMHP-Summative-Report-2016.pdf 
• writing Making Sense of Evidence: A guide to using evidence in policy (Superu, 2018)
  https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/publications/making-sense-evidence-guide-using-evidence-policy
• preparing a business continuity planning guide for pandemic influenza (2005) which won international recognition
• at Waka Kotahi,  initiating the development of their benefits framework, the re-design of the Monetised and Non-monetised Benefits and Costs Manuals
• she re-vamped and re-wrote the Investment Prioritisation Method for the 2021-2024 National Land Transport Plan
  https://www.nzta.govt.nz/planning-and-investment/funding-and-investing/investment-decision-making-framework-review/investment-prioritisation-method/ 
• most recently, Carolyn led the research and wrote the 2023 report, A quantitative analysis of disadvantage and how it persists in Aotearoa New Zealand, at the New Zealand Productivity Commission.
  https://www.productivity.govt.nz/news/recent-updates/a-quantitative-analysis-of-disadvantage-and-how-it-persists-in-aotearoa-new-zealand/