Olawale Nelson Ogunshakin OBE (known as "Nelson Ogunshakin") is a British engineer and businessman. He is currently chief executive officer of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) [1] based in Geneva, Switzerland. [2] He was appointed to the board of Transport for London in September 2016. [3]
Nelson Ogunshakin graduated from Aston University [4] in 1985 with a BSc (Hons) in Civil Engineering and obtained a master's degree in Construction & Programme Management at the University of Birmingham. He also completed an MBA in Strategic Management and Corporate Finance from Aston University in 1994. Nelson also gained certifications from the Harvard Business School and INSEAD Business School executive programmes.
Ogunshakin's first position after university was with civil engineering firm Tarmac, later known as Carillion, in 1981. [5] He then moved to Warwickshire County Council, where he became a transport planner. Moving back into consultancy, he joined Rendel Palmer & Tritton consulting engineers and worked on the construction of new motorways in the area, including the M6 toll.
He spent 14 years at the company, where he worked on projects in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Africa, Canada, Egypt, Africa, the USA and across Europe.
He also held senior positions at WSP Global, AEO Group and in 2004, he became chief executive of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering. At ACE, he oversaw the acquisition and integration of the Environmental Industries Commission into the group and the establishment of the infrastructure industry magazine Infrastructure Intelligence.
As FIDIC CEO, Ogunshakin has repositioned and reinvigorated the organisation to represent the global consulting engineering sector. He concluded the FIDIC strategic negotiations with most multi-lateral and bi-lateral Development Banks (MDBs) to adopt FIDIC standard form of Contract 2017 to be included in their Standard Procurement Documents used for the delivery in excess of $170 billion infrastructure investment funded by the following MDBs:
Ogunshakin has led the global expansion of FIDIC business operations by established FIDIC businesses in Geneva, Switzerland, and in Beijing, China.
In October 2012, Ogunshakin became co-chair of the National Infrastructure Plan Strategic Engagement Forum, providing strategic direction to the execution of the £350 billion plan, working in collaboration with the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP and Chief Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, Lord Deighton KBE. [14]
In October 2014, Ogunshakin was appointed to the London Infrastructure Delivery Board by the GLA. [15]
In September 2016, Ogunshakin was appointed to the Transport for London (TfL) board by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, on an initial four-year tenure and then extended to 2024. [16] In June 2018, Ogunshakin was appointed to the board of Crossrail Limited. Ogunshakin is the Chair of the TfL Programmed and Investment Committee (PIC), [17] member of the Audit & Assurance Committee and the Elizabeth Line Committee responsible for commissioning and onboarding the £18 billion Cross Rail investment project into the London Underground operational asset portfolio.
Ogunshakin has also held a number of non-executive roles on the boards of construction/engineering related companies and organisations. He is currently chair of the investment committee at ARIM-Harith, responsible for £250 million worth of investments in West Africa. He was also chair of Thomas Telford Ltd, the commercial arm of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), board member at construction firm, Deal Pride and trustee roles at engineering charities Engineering UK and Engineers Against Poverty (EAP).[ citation needed ]
In 2021, Ogunshakin was appointed to the Board of Connected Places Catapult. [18]
In October 2023, Ogunshakin was appointed as non-executive director to sit on the board of HS2. As a board member of HS2, Ogunshakin’s duties include ensuring effective governance of the company so that it makes decisions at the right time and properly manages risks, the directing and shaping of the agenda for the company to ensure that it delivers stated priorities, monitoring performance and risk, making choices (or recommendations to ministers) on priorities and ‘risk appetite’ and overseeing healthy relations between HS2 and its stakeholders and commercial partners.
Ogunshakin is qualified, registered and proactively active with several professional institutions operating within infrastructure and built environment including the following:
Nelson Ogunshakin OBE is married to his wife Helen. They currently live in Switzerland and the UK.
RITES Ltd, formerly known as Rail India Technical and Economic Service Limited, is a Navaratna central public sector undertaking under India's Ministry of Railways. It was incorporated on April 26, 1974, and is a multidisciplinary engineering and consultancy organization providing a comprehensive range of services from concept to commissioning in all facets of transport infrastructure and related technologies.
The International Federation of Consulting Engineers is an international standards organization for construction technology and consulting engineering. The organization is best known for the FIDIC suite of contract templates.
WSP Global Inc. is a Canadian consulting firm working mostly in the built environment. It was created in 2012, following Montreal-based Genivar's takeover of British firm WSP Group plc. It is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. After the purchase of New York-headquartered professional services firm Parsons Brinckerhoff in October 2014, WSP effectively became one of the largest professional services firms in the world, with approximately 66,500 employees in 500 offices serving in 40 countries.
Rambøll Group A/S, also known as "Ramboll", is a Danish multinational architecture, engineering, and consulting company. In the past 25 years, the company has expanded from being a business mainly focused on the Nordic region, to having offices in more than 35 countries, with around 18,000 employees working on projects across the world. Much of the company's activity is centred on Europe, North America, but also in emerging markets.
Mouchel Group, originally known as L. G. Mouchel & Partners Ltd, was an infrastructure and business services company headquartered in Woking, United Kingdom. It provided advisory, design, project delivery and managed services associated with infrastructure and business services across the highways and transportation, local government, emergency services, property, health, education and utility markets across the world.
Sir David Hartmann Higgins is an Australian-British businessman, the Chairman of United Utilities Group, Chairman of Gatwick Airport, and the former Non-Executive Chairman of High Speed Two (HS2). He was Chief Executive of the London 2012 Summer Olympics Delivery Authority and Network Rail.
Robert James Mair, Baron Mair, is a geotechnical engineer and Emeritus Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering and director of research at the University of Cambridge. He is Head of the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC). He was Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, from 2001 to 2011 and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, from 1998 to 2001. In 2014 he was elected a vice president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and on 1 November 2017 became the Institution's president for 2017–18, its 200th anniversary year. He was appointed an independent crossbencher in the House of Lords in 2015 and is currently a member of its Select Committee on Science and Technology.
Amey plc, previously known as Amey Ltd and Amey Roadstone Construction, is a United Kingdom-based infrastructure support service provider.
Sir William Gordon Harris was a British civil engineer. His early career was with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and in the Sudanese Irrigation Department before he began a 26-year spell with the Admiralty Civil Engineers Department. Harris rose to become Civil Engineer in Chief in 1959 and was responsible for building facilities to cope with the change in focus of the Royal Navy from gunnery ships to aircraft carriers and submarines, including the nuclear submarine docks at Faslane. Harris was later made director-general of highways in the Ministry of Transport during which time he was responsible for the construction of the 650 miles of motorway, a focus on ground investigation at pre-tender stage and the development of new motorway signalling and telecommunications systems. He later entered private practice as a consulting engineer and was chairman of the Port of Dover. Harris also served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers.
David Michael Gann CBE is a British academic administrator and civil engineer. He is Vice-President (Innovation) at Imperial College London and a member of the College's Executive Board. His academic research spans strategy, management science and systems engineering.
Deepak Parekh is an Indian businessman and the former Chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation, India's leading housing private development finance institution. It is based in Mumbai.
Engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts are a form of contract used to undertake construction works by the private sector on large-scale and complex infrastructure projects.
The Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) is a British business association in the field of consultancy and engineering.
Dr. Cheng Hon-kwan, GBS, OBE, JP is a Hong Kong engineer and politician. He was the member of the Executive Council and Legislative Council of Hong Kong in the 1980s and was chairman of the Hong Kong Housing Authority from 2000 to 2002.
Arcadis NV is a global design, engineering and management consulting company based in the Zuidas, Amsterdam, Netherlands. It currently operates in excess of 350 offices across 40 countries. The company is a member of the Next 150 index.
In 2016 the Women's Engineering Society (WES), in collaboration with the Daily Telegraph, produced an inaugural list of the United Kingdom's Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering, which was published on National Women in Engineering Day on 23 June 2016. The event was so successful it became an annual celebration. The list was instigated by Dawn Bonfield MBE, then Chief Executive of the Women's Engineering Society. In 2019, WES ended its collaboration with the Daily Telegraph and started a new collaboration with The Guardian newspaper.
HS4Air is a proposal for a 140-kilometre (87 mi) high-speed railway line in the United Kingdom, put forward in 2018 by a British engineering consultancy, Expedition Engineering.
Danielle Skelley OBE MBA BEng CEng MICE FCIHT, known as Dana, is Managing Director of Grain of Sand Consulting Ltd. Prior to setting up her own consultancy business she was Director of Strategy and Operational Excellence at Skanska. She is a Council Member of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation. She was Director of Asset Management at Transport for London.
Sir Douglas Edwin Oakervee FHKIE is a British civil engineer who is a past chairman of both High Speed 2 and Crossrail, and was the 139th president of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was awarded the CBE in 2010 for his contributions to civil engineering and appointed Knight bachelor in 2022 for services to transport and infrastructure delivery.
Kazawadi Papias Dedeki, is a Rwandan engineer and leader.