CIHT West Midlands are delighted to celebrate International Women's Day 2024 with the launch of the CIHT West Midland's Women's Network and a panel discussion on IWD2024's topic of "Inspire Inclusion" with several exceptional speakers including CIHT President, Karen McShane and CIHT CEO, Sue Percy.
Bookings for this event are now closed.
Please contact westmidlands@ciht.org.uk for any further information.
This is an EDI event for International Women day, which will include a panel discussion with inspiring speakers who will discuss what inclusion means to them and what it means for CIHT and for Highways & transportation industry. This will be followed by a Q&A and the launching of the CIHT West Midland's Women's Network.
This event will also include a presentation on "Women's Safety on Public Transport" by Susan Leadbetter - Principal Consultant – Liveable Places, WSP.
This event is targeted to women in the Highways and Transport industry, but it is open to all, including men who would like to practice allyship for female colleagues in the industry.
Sue Percy CBE - Chief Executive Officer, CIHT
Sue Percy is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation. CIHT is a charity, learned society and membership body whose members are mainly engineers and transport planners, operating in the UK and internationally. Sue’s interests include improving the way transport infrastructure - including roads - is planned, funded, designed, built, managed and operated to meet societal needs, environmental imperatives and supporting a strong economy. She has a deep interest in changing the image of the transport infrastructure industry and making it a more diverse and inclusive career for all.
Sue holds several voluntary Trustee and non-executive Director roles. She has worked in the built environment sector for over 30 years in allied professions, Higher Education and in local government. Sue was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in June 2019 for services to transport.
Karen McShane - CIHT President
Karen McShane is a chartered engineer and has over 35 years experience in the Highways and Transportation industry specialising in transport planning. She holds a part time role through the Northern Ireland Executive Office working for the Strategic investment Board giving transport advice as well as running her own consultancy practice.
This year she also holds the role of President of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation with three over arching themes: Climate Action; Professionalism; and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion. She is a strong advocate of sustainable travel and tries to educate our decision makers on the need to have these sustainable travel modes available and she says that is why CIHT’s Bus Centre of Excellence is an important element of the Institution's work.
Melanie Clarke - Director of Health, Safety & Wellbeing, National Highways
As National Highways Director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing, Mel brings almost 20 years of extensive operational experience to the role. One of the first Operations Managers leading traffic officers in the West Midlands, Mel went on to lead the company’s national and regional control rooms and, as Operations Director, was accountable for delivering improved safety for all our on-road staff and those of our supply chain. Mel specialises in leading large and complex operations, with diverse teams that are public facing within a 24/7, 365 days a year, safety critical service environment.
Mel believes in building excellence through diversity and inclusion, founding National Highways Leading Women Network, which won at the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion Awards 2020, for Best Public Sector Employee Network. In 2021 Mel was the winner of the Diversity Champion Award at the Chartered Institute for Logistics and Transportation. In addition, Mel established and chaired the National Highways Roads for All Forum, bringing together representative groups and delivering service improvements to better the journey experiences of disabled and vulnerable road users.
Susan Leadbetter - Principal Consultant - Liveable Places, WSP
Susan started at WSP in 2015 as an Apprentice and is now a Principal Consultant in the Liveable Places team. She is passionate about Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion within the built environment and is a qualified Road Safety Auditor. In 2021, she conducted a study focusing on Women’s Safety on public transport in London, which resulted in the creation of an anti-sexual harassment campaign across the TfL network.
In September 2022, she was awarded the 'CIHT Research Initiative of the Year' for her women’s safety research and named WSP’s 'Changemaker of the Year.' She currently leads WSP’s dedicated Women’s Safety, Equality, and Diversity team, and she sits on a design panel as part of her role to review schemes, ensuring they consider EDI throughout the project life cycle.
Anita Prashar - Regional Delivery Director, National Highways
Anita Prashar joined National Highways in March 2019 and has worked her way up to the Regional Delivery Director overseeing a £2bn programme portfolio. She is an authentic, credible professional programme leader with more than 20 years of managing complex projects in private and public sectors on national and internationally.
Track record of delivering outstanding results, building diverse teams and partnerships with the supply chain.
Before joining National Highways, Anita served as Senior Programme Manager within the Rail Industry where she was instrumental in developing the strategy for standards management through streaming line GB standards. Saving the rail industry millions.
Anita holds a Masters in Operational Research while lecturing Knowledge and Project Management, and a bachelor’s degree in Business and Finance from Coventry University.
Anita is a local girl and has seen the horizon of the Midlands change and is a proud Coventrian and outside of work has held a school Governors position.
Anne Shaw OBE - Executive Director, Transport for West Midlands
Anne Shaw OBE has worked in local government since the early 90’s pursuing a career in public services where she has been able to make a difference to communities and the places where they live and work.
Starting as a junior technician at Birmingham City Council, she progressed through various roles to become Assistant Director of Transportation, responsible for policy, strategy, and delivery.
Anne later joined Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) in 2017 as Director of Network Resilience, where she has delivered a unique service keeping residents, businesses and visitors informed of transport disruption helping them to plan journeys and keep moving, as well as preparing the transport operation to support the Commonwealth Games whilst minimising impacts on the day-to-day network. Anne was pivotal in the pioneering work of being the first Regional Transport Coordination Centre outside of London.
In July 2021, Anne was appointed Interim Managing Director of TfWM, and subsequently became the permanent Executive Director in early 2022. Here she is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership to support the delivery of TfWM’s priorities as well as leading the WMCA’s response to strategic transport planning, driving economic growth and championing transport innovation and development. Anne leads a team of experienced directors who plan the region’s future development alongside delivering a £5.2bn investment programme and maintaining our operational assets.
She is part of an executive team at the West Midlands Combined Authority which leads on delivering better outcomes for people through an integrated investment programme for housing, skills, net zero and economic performance and improved connectivity with Transport investment.
Anne is currently the Deputy Chair of Urban Transport Group and a Department for Transport Champion on tackling Violence and aggression against Women and Girls across the public transport sector.
Anne was recognised by Every Women in Transport in 2020 for her leadership in the Customer and Passenger award, and more recently in 2023 Anne was awarded an OBE in the Kings Birthday Honours list for her contribution in leading the transport programme for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. In addition to this, in 2023 she was also awarded the institute award from the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation of which she is a fellow in recognition of her leadership in the transport sector over her career.
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For more information, please contact westmidlands@ciht.org.uk.
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