Constructing Excellence Conference 2024: Delivering Tomorrow Today

Constructing Excellence

The Constructing Excellence Annual Conference brings together key decision makers from across the Constructing Excellence Movement and wider construction industry to explore the burning issues of the day and how they relate to Constructing Excellence Mission and Vision.

The 2024 Conference, taking place on 24th January at BMA House, will focus on the theme of Delivering Tomorrow Today: Act Now for a Better Future. 

We are currently looking for sponsors and partners to help us shape this key event. To find out more about tickets and opportunities for sponsorship, see our 2024 Sponsor Brochure.

Don’t miss out, book your space now!

Delivering Tomorrow Today: Act Now for a Better Future

With so many drivers for change in the built environment, the risks of inaction outweigh the opportunity to do things better. On so many issues, from climate change through skills shortages and inflation through to building safety, many of the solutions exist but organisations are failing to act at the scale and pace required to deliver the required shift in performance.

A sense that the optimum solution lies somewhere in the future and too many options can lead to procrastination and inaction. We owe it to our future selves and future generations to act now. The future can’t wait! 

 

Learn from those who are delivering tomorrow today…

Acting now doesn’t mean a step into the unknown. There are projects and organisations who are blazing a trail for us all to follow. During this conference we will delve into leading-edge practice, learn from those who are doing it already and explore how we can learn from and build upon their leadership.

We will be exploring some of the emerging areas of best practice in line with our theme groups including Future Climate, Procurement, Performance Measurement, Manufacturing & Technology. Bringing together leading thinkers and those who are delivering real change on their own projects including Constructing Excellence award winners and members.

 

Panels

During the event, we will host 3 panels focusing on:

  1. Future Climate
    We will take a deep dive into the role our industry plays in minimising and mitigating against future climate change. We will look at what leading organisations are doing now to minimise their carbon footprint and climate impact and what we can all do in our organisations to deliver better future climate outcomes.
  2. Future Society
    How do we shape a better industry for the people who work in it? How do we shape a built environment that supports people better? What can we do today to deliver that in the future. In this session we will bring together leading practitioners who are at the forefront of this journey.
  3. Future Major Projects
    Major Projects have the scale and longevity to accelerate innovation and push productivity.  In this session representatives from the CE Major Projects group will explore the role that Major Projects can play in modelling the future and how that can be transferred more widely across the sector. 
  4. Future Delivery
    We can’t deliver excellence with a broken industry. In this session we will be looking at the transformative factors that we need to embrace to deliver a better future industry. From better procurement through the Gold Standard, better use of data through performance measurement and unlocking industrialised construction the building blocks are in place for better future delivery.

 

Speakers

Constructing Excellence

Dan Gerrella

Position: Associate Director, Liz Male Consulting (LMC)
Categories: Future Society

Dan is associate director at Liz Male Consulting (LMC), a specialist communications consultancy for the construction and property sector.

A Chartered PR practitioner, he has spent his career in the built environment, working in the UK and internationally. This includes significant work related to corporate positioning and reputation, community engagement, and crisis and issues management.

One of his areas of expertise is construction innovation, working with LMC’s portfolio of clients to drive change in the industry. Whether supporting a start-up with its first steps into the sector or working with established businesses, Dan helps them to communicate their agenda to the people that matter most.

Dan is also a board director at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), which is responsible for maintaining professional standards and supporting lifelong learning in PR.

Dan Gerrella

Associate Director, Liz Male Consulting (LMC)

Dan is associate director at Liz Male Consulting (LMC), a...

Constructing Excellence

Jenny McLaughlin

Position: Project Manager, Heathrow Airport
Categories: Future Society

Jenny McLaughlin has worked within the airport industry for over 20 years. This began at East Midlands Airport as an Environment and Safeguarding Officer achieving ISO14001. The last 16 years have been at Heathrow Airport in a number of departments including Environment, Airside and now Infrastructure as a project manager.

Jenny has delivered a number of business changes, from new aircraft de-icing process, introducing new IT applications, building a remote coaching gate in the middle of a live terminal, to significant maintenance work to the Northern runway.

Jenny is dyslexic and has ADHD and believes that “the way that my brain is wired differently is an asset”. Jenny is a speaker at a number of industry events on ‘Systematic Inclusion’, bringing to life the criticality of accessibility if we are to truly ‘Build Back Equitable’. This is most evident in being a key player in creation of RIBA Inclusive Design Overlay published earlier this year.

Finally, Jenny is a member of the board for Get It Right Initiative (GIRI). GIRI is a group of industry experts, organisations and businesses dedicated to eliminating error and improving the UK construction industry.

Jenny advocates that each person should have an equitable seat at the table and creating a safe environment to challenge and improve the way we interreact and build the world around us.

Jenny McLaughlin

Project Manager, Heathrow Airport

Jenny McLaughlin has worked within the airport industry for over...

Constructing Excellence

Roxana Vornicu

Position: Research Associate at King's College London, Centre of Construction Law
Categories: Future Climate

Dr. Roxana Vornicu, a practicing construction and procurement lawyer, joined King’s College London as a Research Associate in 2020. She holds a PhD in public procurement law from a doctorate program in Italy, the UK and France. Prior to joining King’s, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Turin, Italy where she focused her research on central purchasing bodies and a comparative review of framework agreements in the EU.

For the past three years, she has lectured at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, teaching about international treaties and their impact on construction contracts. She has also taught at Stuttgart University, the International Construction: Practice and Law (MBE) course, lecturing on collaborative construction contracts.

At King’s, Roxana has been involved in several research programs, including one that looked into procurement strategies for incentivising collaborative delivery to optimise whole-life outcomes. She contributed to the drafting of the White Paper: ‘Procurement Strategies for incentivising collaborative delivery to optimize whole-life outcomes’  developed by King’s Centre of Construction Law and the University of Cambridge Laing O’Rourke Centre for Construction Engineering and Technology and published by the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB).

She worked on the report: ‘Procuring Net Zero Construction’ which was published by the Society of Construction Law and endorsed by the UK Government in the September 2022 ´Construction Playbook´ and ´Guidance on Promoting Net Zero Carbon and Sustainability in Construction.’

Roxana Vornicu

Research Associate at King's College London, Centre of Construction Law

Dr. Roxana Vornicu, a practicing construction and procurement lawyer, joined...

Constructing Excellence

Tom Weld

Position: Director, Burges Salmon
Categories: Future Delivery

Tom advises a wide range of public and private sector clients on issues relating to construction and engineering projects and PFI agreements and has particular experience in advising on building safety issues and the requirements of the Building Safety Act 2022.  He specialises in advising on dispute resolution – whether by way of negotiation, mediation, adjudication, arbitration or litigation.  Prior to qualifying as a solicitor, Tom trained and worked as an architect and has an excellent insight into the specific issues and challenges faced by clients operating within the built environment sector.

Tom Weld

Director, Burges Salmon

Tom advises a wide range of public and private sector...

Agenda

Sponsors

Exhibitors

Connect
Creating new and re-enforcing existing connections is a key part of the conference. Lots of time and space is dedicated to allowing participants to interact and strengthen the networks vital to drive a better construction industry.

Insight
Participants gain insight into the latest thinking and drivers of change across the sector.

Inspire
Through best practice and leading-edge examples, we inspire participants to embrace better ways of working and implement change in their organisations and projects.