Paul Sheffield, current ICE Vice President, has been officially elected as the next President by ICE Council and will succeed Andrew Wyllie in November 2019.
Sheffield was initially put forward as a potential candidate for the 2019/20 presidency by the Nomination Committee in March 2018 and confirmed by Council in April 2018. Council has now formally elected him to serve for the session. Sheffield studied civil engineering at the University of Surrey, graduating in 1983 and becoming chartered in 1987.
Following graduation, he spent 31 years with the Kier Group, initially working on a wide range of civil engineering and construction projects in various parts of the world. These included a gold mine in Papua New Guinea, a commercial development in London, a concrete gravity dam in Snowdonia where he was the chief engineer, and latterly as project director on a desalination plant in Saudi Arabia and underground railways in Hong Kong.
Between 2005 and 2010, he was on the board of Kier Group, with responsibility for their global civil engineering and construction activities. From 2010 to 2014, he was CEO of the group, with overall revenues of £3bn and activities spanning construction, support services, property development and housing.
In 2014, he joined Laing O’Rourke to head its UK and Middle East construction business, with close involvement in projects such as Thames Tideway Tunnels and Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
Sheffield is currently a non-executive director of Southern Water Services and is on the supervisory board of the Dutch Construction Group BAM. He is also an industrial advisor to the board of Manchester Airport Group, working on their capital expansion work at both Manchester and Stansted airports. He is an ICE Fellow.
