Joanna Kennedy

Dr Joanna Kennedy OBE FREng FICE, (born 22 July 1950),^[1] is a British civil engineer and project manager. She is currently a non-executive director of the property company Native Land^[2] and a director of the ERA Foundation,^[3] having been Global Leader for Programme and Project Management at Arup until 2013 (a Director from 1996). She is a Patron of Women into Science and Engineering (WISE),^[4] which she helped launch in 1984.^[5] She became a Trustee of Cumberland Lodge in 2001^[6] and in June 2015 was appointed a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.^[7]

Early life, education and family

Born Joanna Alicia Gore Ormsby, in London, Kennedy was educated at The Abbey School, Reading and Queen Anne's School, Caversham and won a scholarship to Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford; she was one of just three females among over a hundred engineering students and graduated with first class honours in Engineering Science and the ICE Prize.^[8]

Career

Kennedy joined Ove Arup & Partners, consulting engineers, in 1972^[9] and her projects as a design engineer included the M25 Runnymede Bridge^[10] and St Paul’s Thameslink station. She was a founder of the firm’s project management practice in 1990, became its leader for Europe in 2006 and was appointed Global Leader for Programme and Project Management in 2010. The practice was the APM Project Management Company of the Year in both 2007^[11] and 2012.^[12]

She was project director for redevelopments at the Southbank Centre designed by Richard Rogers, the National Maritime Museum Cornwall,^[13] Hackney Empire, the Horniman Museum and she led the design team for the remodelled King's Cross St. Pancras tube station.

She was Arup’s project management director from 2008 to 2013 for the Francis Crick Institute ^[14] and from 2009 to 2013 project director for the planned Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre.^[15][16]

Kennedy's other appointments have included Vice Chairman of the Port of London Authority,^[17] a Commissioner of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, a Trustee of the Science Museum^[18] and a member of the Engineering Council.^[8]

She was appointed to the Council of the University of Southampton from 1996 until 1999,^[1] and of the Royal College of Art from 2001 until 2016 (also chairing the Buildings & Estates Committee).^[19] She was commissioned as a Major in the Engineer and Logistic Staff Corps in 2004^[20] and was elected to the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers in 2005.^[1]

Honours and awards

• 1994: Honorary Doctor of Science at the University of Salford
• 1995: Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours^[21]
• 1997: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering^[22]
• 2007: Woman of the Year at the Atkins Inspire Awards for the built environment ^[23]
• 2008: Woman of Outstanding Achievement – For Leadership and Inspiration to Others.^[17]
• 2013: First Woman of Engineering at the CBI/Real Business Awards.^[24][25]

References