Shukti Mokkapati Sharma

Shukti is a lawyer who, by her own cheerful admission, loves contracts, an enthusiasm that first took hold in her third year of law school. It set the course for a career spent in construction, infrastructure and the major disputes that come with them, most of it over a decade at MinterEllisonRuddWatts before she joined RCP to lead its legal team.

Her work at RCP runs on two fronts, advising on its major projects and supporting the business behind the scenes. She gravitates to the trickier, more complex problems, the ones that don't come with a ready answer.

That matters all the more as the ground shifts beneath the industry. New Zealand construction has long run on relationships and good faith, and as more contractually minded players enter the market, her focus is on holding onto those relationships while making sure the contract beneath them is sound.

Above all, she has a clear view of what legal should be in the business, something that gives people the confidence to take work on and deliver it well, with the groundwork already in place.