Judges for the 2016 WISE Awards

Alison Atkinson

Civil Engineer, AWE

Alison gained a BEng Hons in Civil Engineering from Manchester University. After University, she Joined Halcrow Consulting in Swindon where she worked on a number of major infrastructure projects including the Al Yamamah Hunter programme in Saudi Arabia. Alison took an opportunity to lead projects in the United Arab Emirates, the first female Lead Engineer to do so for Halcrow, where she spent 3 years leading on multiple complex projects ranging from harbours, artificial islands and coastal defences across a number of the different Emirates and Oman.

After a short break travelling the world, she returned to the UK and continued in the maritime sector, in particular coastal management policy, a growth area in response to climate change understanding. Here she worked on developing coastal management policy options working with Defra, the Environment Agency and Local Authorities.

In 2005 Alison joined AWE initially in the Major Projects area. After successfully delivering one of the key production facilities, she went on to lead the programme management of the infrastructure operational areas, integrating this diverse supporting programme. As these major projects neared completion, Alison moved to set up the operational commissioning business teams to turn the major projects into production centres, a particularly challenging and complex programme of work.

With this wide ranging experience of AWE, Alison was able to move into a Project Director, Technical Programme role during May 2014, operating right of the heart of AWE’s business.

As a member of the senior leadership team at AWE, Alison is the chair of AWE’s WiSTEM (Women in STEM) Working Group. This group focus is on business change to increase diversity and encourage female retention and sponsorship in the technical areas of the business.

Alison is married to Andy; they have two sons aged 14 and 12, and a daughter aged 6. An enthusiastic hockey and tennis player in her youth, Alison now enjoys coaching the games, alongside swimming and the occasional run. Her other passion is music and still plays the piano.

Christine Flounders

EMEA Regional Manager, Engineering, Bloomberg L.P.

Christine Flounders is Regional Manager for London Engineering at Bloomberg L.P, responsible for a team of more than 600 technologists working to architect, build and deploy software, digital platforms and mobile applications for Bloomberg customers in financial services. In her almost 15 years at the firm, she has managed teams of developers in London and New York, working across a diverse spectrum of solutions that range from charting and technical analysis software to real-time alerts and pricing tools. Christine graduated from New York University with a degree in Computer Science.

Simon Hosking

MSDF Contract Manager, Babcock International Group, Marine & Technology Division

Simon spent his early career in project and production roles refitting RN ships and submarines at Devonport Royal Dockyard before heading up the supply chain activity for the stream of Vanguard Class submarine refits that commenced in 2002.

As a chartered engineer Simon moved into a commercial role providing the customer interface for Babcock’s Naval Base management contract at Devonport then enjoyed 2 years delivering the build programme for the final batch of RNLI Tamar Class all weather lifeboats. He currently leads the contract management activity for a new contract that delivers maritime support from Babcock at the HM Naval Bases at Clyde and Devonport.

Simon chairs the Division’s Respect working group, which over the last 2 years has developed links with WISE to encourage women within STEM roles at Babcock.

Bob James

Executive Director, BAM Nuttall, BSc Hons, C Eng, MICE, FCInstCES

Bob gained his BSc in Civil Engineering at the University of Surrey and began his career in 1974 working with design consultants in Glasgow where he was involved with two major reservoir schemes. This early experience with design consultants exposed him to the design office, contract administration, site supervision and client interfaces and helped him understand the business environment and model.

In 1985, his career path changed when he began working for civil engineering contractor, Edmund Nuttall, which later became BAM Nuttall. His early roles were as Project Quantity Surveyor on technically and commercially challenging contracts in Scotland and the North East. This set him firmly on a commercial career path, which led to roles as managing surveyor, commercial manager, regional commercial manager, commercial director, and in in 2012 he joined BAM Nuttall’s executive board.

Bob has continued to provide an overview role of commercial services for the business, and has also taken on a balanced share of executive duties, including:

• formed and chaired Nuttall’s operational board providing support for the whole of the business, and links to support department heads
• implemented and promoted enterprise risk management team
• developed and promotes company purpose, values and vision
• promotes excellence in business process and procedures
• provides executive board links to our environment and sustainability teams
• sponsor for the company behavioural culture – “beyond zero” leadership team
• improving internal communications in the business
• making sure our staff succession plans are in place, and actively used.

This can only be achieved by working with talented, motivated and engaged teams of diverse people, to achieve this goal Bob is:

Bob actively supports BAM Nuttall’s Women@BAM programme, which was established to attract talented women into BAM Nuttall and he fully supports them in developing their careers.

Bob, and is wife Gill, have three grown up sons, and now two young grand-daughters. He is very clear that he would want to see the girls going into their lives, where diversity is celebrated and would like to make his contribution to that goal. Bob enjoys a wide range of outdoor activities and sports, mostly watching these days, including a weakness for Newcastle united, despite being relegated this season.

Lilian Knight

Systems Engineer, Thales

Lilian Knight graduated from Durham University in 2013 with a Master’s Degree in Physics. She was then accepted on to the Graduate Scheme at Thales UK, working within the Land and Air Systems domain in Basingstoke. She spent the first year of her career working as a Sensors Engineer within the Missile Electronics business developing infra- red and magnetic sensors for fuzing systems. More recently she has moved into Systems Engineering working on a project to develop an Infra-Red Threat Warning System for helicopters and light aircraft.

Lilian has been keenly involved in many outreach programmes whilst at Thales, working to encourage students of all ages into careers in STEM subjects. She has arranged several events at her old school and university as well as supporting events in the local community. For the past two years she has also volunteered as mentor for the Brunel University Women in Engineering Mentoring Programme.

Catherine Lewis

Global Head of Client Assets Technology, Goldman Sachs

Catherine joined Goldman Sachs in February 2011 where she is a Senior Engineer in the Regulatory and Control Technology organisation and globally heads Client Asset Protection Technology. She co-leads the internal European Women in Technology affinity network and is an active member of the Girls in IT initiative.

Prior to working at Goldmans, Catherine worked in the Technology department in JPMorgan for 13 years where amongst other things she managed Client Reference Data technology, Client Profitability Technology and was a Program Manager in Research Technology implementing a Global Publishing System.

Her past career has also included working for the EC in Brussels where she worked in the Areonautics and Customs divisions where she worked on a number of technology projects including a bespoke messaging system for customs offices across the member states.

Catherine attended Leeds Beckett University where she studied Business and Finance. She lives in South West London with her husband Simon and daughters Adele 19 and Yvette 11.

Aisling Love

Manager of the Project Management Office (PMO), Winton

Aisling joined Winton’s Technology department in 2014. She is responsible for overseeing the portfolio of projects running across the department; designing and implementing project management processes and standards; manging high risk and complex projects; and delivering detailed management information to senior management. As part of her role she works closely with development teams to guide them through efficient project delivery, stakeholder communication, and benefits realisation.

Aisling has considerable experience in IT project and programme management and delivery. Prior to Winton she ran a global project management team who managed 180+ software development and implementation projects concurrently. She has worked in both London and Toronto delivering software implementation and business process change projects in many of the top law firms across the UK and North America.

Aisling holds a Masters degree in Computer Assisted Language Learning from the University of Melbourne and an Honours Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Linguistics and German from Trinity College, Dublin and is a PRINCE2 project management practitioner.

Helen Mullings

Director of Professional Development, McKinsey & Company

Helen Mullings leads Professional Development for McKinsey & Company in the UK. McKinsey's client service covers many areas where a background in science or engineering is a real asset including Digital, Operations, Advanced Analytics or R&D Strategy. Helen herself trained as a Chemical Engineer at Imperial College, London, before starting her career at Shell where she worked in a number of sales, marketing and trading roles, both in the UK and internationally over an 8 year period.

Helen joined McKinsey as a consultant originally working largely with energy and chemicals clients and discovering a passion for talent development along the way, which is now her full-time role. In her current position she oversees the development of over 400 UK based consultants, ensuring that McKinsey deploys the most innovative approaches to attracting and nurturing top talent. Achieving gender parity across the firm is a strategic priority for McKinsey, and for Helen this is also a personal passion, working to improve the recruitment, retention and progression of women both in McKinsey and also more broadly, across other professional services firms.

Megan Stowe

Greater European Region Procurement Director and International Supply Diversity Manager, Intel

Megan has been at Intel for 20 years working in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK during this time. She started in Sales and Marketing in Australia working in PR and events management and then moved to Hong Kong to start up their SMG site procurement in Asia During this time she has covered a variety of roles including Sales & Marketing, Travel, relocation, immigration & HR procurement areas. She has predominantly held Global positions, as well as worked and lived in Asia Pacific (10 years) and EMEA (8 years). Setting global procurement and Supply chain sustainability strategies, performance metrics and managing global teams (LAR, NA, APAC and EMEA). Currently, Megan looks across the indirect services/procurement supply chain working with the different verticals (sales & marketing, HR, travel, IT, Logistics, product engineering services etc) within the GER Region working with her team on implementing global strategies locally and driving local strategies where it is needed. Along with this she is managing the Women’s Supply chain initiative strategies internationally to ensure we are working with an inclusive supply chain. With this initiative we are looking at and have achieved increasing our spend with women owned businesses in our supply chain at both the tier 1 and 2 levels and developing our pipeline of inclusive sourcing opportunities. Megan is a board member of the WeConnect International, along with the Chair & Director of the European WeConnect Advisory board and co-chairs the WISE Young Womens Board. She works closely with schools and universities ensuring STEM is promoted to girls. Megan’s passion is to promote the education of Women and girls especially around the STEM subjects.

She is Irish/Australian/South African by nationality and grew up in Africa. She graduated from the University of Cape Town, South Africa with a MD Psychiatry/Sports medicine. Prior to Intel she worked for Warner Lambert Park Davis & Caltex Head office in Cape Town.

Henner Wapenhans

Director - Technology Strategy, Rolls-Royce plc

Henner was appointed to his current role in 2012 and leads a small corporate group in the UK operating on the boundary between technology opportunities and business development. His technology strategy activity focuses on long-term research direction setting as well as on fast-moving emerging and disruptive technologies, and on matching corporate development and external funding opportunities across all business sectors of Rolls-Royce.

In the early part of his 20 years career with Rolls-Royce, Henner held a number of executive positions in the civil aero engine control systems business as well as in the engineering function, and worked in Germany and in the US.

From 2004 to 2009 he was President and CEO of Data Systems & Solutions, a subsidiary company specialising in real-time data management, condition monitoring and predictive maintenance for mission critical equipment.

From 2009 to 2012 Henner headed Rolls-Royce’s North America activities supporting the nuclear power industry and led the company’s manufacturing and engineering services group for civilian nuclear power in the UK.

Henner was born and raised in Washington, D.C. After finishing high school he moved to Germany where he earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich, and also received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Munich.

Henner is married and has two daughters.

​Jenny Young

Head of Diversity, Royal Academy of Engineering

Jenny Young jointly leads the government-funded Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering programme at the Royal Academy of Engineering. This programme works with many large engineering employers across the UK and with the 35 professional engineering institutions as well as with many other stakeholder organisations including WISE. The programme aims to stimulate practical action and cultural change, to encourage and support talent from all backgrounds in pursuing and succeeding within engineering.

Jenny read Engineering at Cambridge University before working as a Systems Engineer and manager with BAE Systems for 24 years. Her experience spans the avionics and radar businesses and she has also tutored in Systems Engineering. She developed a particular interest in the development and future supply of young engineering talent, joining the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010 to pursue this aim.

Her initial role at the Academy was with the National HE STEM Programme. In 2011 the Academy received funding from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to launch its Diversity Programme which Jenny has managed since its outset.

Jenny is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the IET and a STEMNET Ambassador.