eWater Group’s Stephen Cory, Chief Operating Officer, has been named COO of the Year 2025: Water Resource Strategy & Sustainability in CEO Monthly’s first global COO excellence awards.
The following editorial was published in CEO Monthly July 2025 edition
A venture jointly owned by all Australian governments, eWater Group supports sustainable, climate-focused water management through the provision of stewardship, development, enhancement, research, access, and transparency in this space. The company not only works within all of Australia’s states and territories, but its presence can be felt internationally, particularly in Asia and the Pacific.
Stephen Cory is the COO of this huge operation, and he leverages more than 25 years in finance, quality assurance, and management systems to lead valiantly from the front. On the back of his recognition in this programme, we caught up with Stephen for more.
Founded in 2005, eWater Group is today relied upon to deliver trusted, creative, and science-led tools and expertise to more than meet the water management needs of Australia and other countries in this part of the world. The team here work tirelessly to support, facilitate, and encourage evidence-based decision making when it comes to water resources, seen through their ability to develop, manage, and deploy tools and services that enhance responsible water management, underpinning them all with accurate data and practical advice.
Duty-bound to deliver these offerings in the best interests of its owner governments, stakeholders, and clients – as well as on behalf of the Australian people that have invested in its capacity to deliver – eWater Group has evolved considerably over the past two decades, to the point where international stakeholders are now as reliant on its products, tools, and expertise as those within its home country. These insights assist stakeholders with everything from reducing poverty to pursuing integrated water resources management.
“There is no other organisation in Australia that can ensure the safe custody and wise, ongoing development of these critical national assets.”
eWater Group manages two businesses – eWater Solutions, its software and hydrology business responsible for supporting the application of its tools for water modelling both at home and abroad, and the Australian Water Partnership, which is a key part of Australia’s support for climate resilient sustainable water resource management in South Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific.
Until January 2024, Mekong Water Solutions was the third business operated by the company, with this venture delivered in partnership with the Australian Government to see a practical approach taken to climate-sensitive water resources management in Cambodia. MWS successfully met program outcomes and delivered services using Australian and local water expertise in Cambodia until the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s decision to discontinue funding beyond January 2024.
eWater Group is continuing to go from strength to strength, and a great many of its successes over the past eight years can be attributed to COO Stephen Cory. Backed by more than a quarter century of experience in a career spanning everything from banking to work in the not-for-profit sector, Stephen has carved out a well-deserved reputation for himself as a strategic and astute senior executive.
Across his daily responsibilities as eWater Group’s COO, Stephen oversees and manages the operations and strategies of the company, ensuring its strategic goals are met. As a part of this, he has even optimised the internal process of the company to the internationally recognised ISO:9001 standard, all whilst improving efficiency, driving growth, and keeping alignment with the company’s vision of making water management better.
Since joining eWater Group in early 2017, Stephen has achieved a number of highly impressive feats, such as increasing growth in retained earnings by 250% as a result of careful financial management across the company. In addition to this he has also successfully bid for an open tender for the third phase of the Australian Water Partnership.
Although these figures are notable, Stephen told us: “I have always taken the view of telling the story behind the numbers.” This not only relates to his unique ability to explain complex financial structures to those not in the know, but it is also indictive of a COO that is about much more than figures on a piece of paper. For example, Stephen prides himself on a mantra of continuous improvement, allowing him to improve both his own performance and that of the wider company through the likes of audits and due diligence reviews.
This ability to keep pace with an ever-changing environment is proving increasingly important in a landscape of growing complexity and new challenges, and significant discussions have been sparked as a result of these developments. Diving deeper into this, Stephen explained: “At eWater Group, we are part of this conversation, developing innovative, science-based solutions to support effective water management. By leveraging advanced scientific methods, we continuously refine our approaches to address water modelling challenges.”
“Transparency plays a key part in addressing these challenges. We operate as a model ethical corporate entity, holding our core values and commitments to sound governance. These values encapsulate the delivery of our functions with integrity, building value and opportunities for our stakeholders whilst also sustaining and enriching our stakeholders with whom we work and the communities we serve and support.”
Exploring these core values in more detail, eWater’s values comprise integrity, accountability, development, and growth. This can be seen across what both his greatest challenge and his proudest achievement is – helping developing countries make considerable strides in their climate-sensitive water resources management.
Nations close to Australia are beginning to tackle challenges relating to their long-term water security as a result of the variable, unforgiving climate, and Australia is well placed to be able to help its neighbours as a result of its knowledge and proficiency in capacity building. Mekong Water Solutions was a brilliant example of this, with the business employing 30 local professionals to develop a strategy, structure, and implementation plan to deliver water resource projects in the Mekong.
In the more than two years it was in operation, this initiative secured USD$145m in funding from the World Bank, built strong relationships with key ministries in Cambodia (such as the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries), and became acclaimed amongst stakeholders on the back of its ability to provide practical solutions to the most pressing water management issues.
With the experiences taken from this project still fresh in his mind, Stephen shared with us that his future ambitions for eWater Group are based around maturing and strategically growing both the company and its services. A newly created international committee of the board will help oversee these expansion efforts, allowing the company to reach as many people and communities as it can across Indo-Pacific countries.
Explaining this further, Stephen told us: “We want to build on this experience and our unique position as a trusted advisor to governments relating to water management, expanding our operations into these areas of opportunity.”
Outside of this, eWater Group remains committed to the pursuit of sustainable and climate-resilient management of water in Australia and beyond through partnerships and the provision of trusted and innovative expertise and tools.
We develop and deliver Australia’s National Hydrological Modelling Platform, eWater Source, on behalf of all Australian governments; and deliver international water development programs on behalf of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Australian Water Partnership. eWater Source is, at its core, an incredibly powerful national asset, one developed by a high calibre of technical Australian expertise and knowledge. The capabilities of this platform have been recognised nationally, resulting in its deployment to model river basins internationally.
Finally, Stephen shared more details on the previously mentioned third phase of the Australian Water Partnership: “We signed the new contract with DFAT in May 2024 and commenced Phase 3 immediately, concurrent with the transition and success of Phase 2 activities. It is expected that Phase 3 will run until June 2029, building on the success of previous phases, but focusing particularly on climate resilience in water management in developing countries across Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific.”
Ultimately, as it works towards these initiatives, it is worth reinforcing the great work that eWater Group does in enabling the sustainable, climate-resilient management of water in Australia and internationally.
This is made possible only by its people, including award-winning COO Stephen Cory, who are responsible for the company’s strategic direction as “trusted adviser” – instilling confidence in partners and stakeholders alike from all over the world.
Want to know more? eWater Source, eWater MUSIC, and the eWater Group Executive Leadership.
Want to learn more about CEO Monthly and its first Global COO Excellence Awards? Read their press release.
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