Global Construction Futures – global construction up US$4.2 trillion by 2037

Adrian Cooper is responsible for coordinating and managing Oxford Economics’ global economic analysis, forecasting and consultancy activities, and overseeing its global team of over 450 professionals including 300 economists and analysts. He has led Oxford Economics’ work on a wide array of consultancy projects, ranging from policy advice to government departments in Europe, the US, Africa, and Asia to detailed analysis of the economic impact of particular industries and investment proposals.

Adrian spent the first seven years of his career with HM Treasury, England. During this time, he worked on the analysis of tax and other economic policy changes as part of the preparations for the UK Budget. He was also the coordinator of the government’s macroeconomic forecast for two years.

Prior to joining Oxford Economics in 1994, Adrian was UK economist for James Capel & Company, responsible for analysing and forecasting the UK economy for institutional investors, as well as briefing Capel’s own traders. Adrian was educated at the University of Bristol, England, where he gained a first-class degree in Economics; and at the London School of Economics and Political Science, England, where he achieved a distinction in the MSc in Economics and won the Ely Devons prize for outstanding performance in the degree examinations.

I have over 30 years of construction insurance experience, of which 17 have been with the Aon Group. I have travelled extensively and placed major construction projects in most parts of the world for owners, contractors and infrastructure funds.  Currently I am the Global Head of Construction and Infrastructure at Aon.

Graham is the Global Infrastructure and Construction Lead at Oxford Economics.

He is also the Global Business Consultant at Pinsent Masons LLP – the world’s top-ranked firm of lawyers for construction. He has 35 years of experience in the infrastructure and construction sector.

He is one of the world’s leading global construction economists, according to Engineering News Record (ENR) in the US. He leads consultancy assignments and is an author of Global Construction 2030 and many other industry reports and writes regularly for journals and other media.

Graham was previously a Partner and Head of Management Consulting for one of the largest global management and construction consultants and he was Commercial Director of the renowned Centre for Strategic Studies in Construction as a part of the School of Construction Management and Engineering at the University of Reading – a recognised global centre of excellence in construction strategy.

Jeremy Leonard is responsible for overseeing the work of the industry forecasting team and managing the operation and output of Oxford Economics’ Global Industry Model as well as related consultancy work.

Jeremy’s knowledge and past experience span a broad range, including competitiveness and offshoring/reshoring, commodity price modelling, and applied economic research on sectors ranging from biotech to heavy manufacturing to telecoms. In addition to numerous recurring bespoke sales and output forecasts for industries as diverse as machine tools and consumer packaging, recent consulting assignments have included the drivers of competitiveness in the chemical sector, forward-looking analyses of high-growth sectors across a range of emerging economies, and the ways in which digital technologies are transforming economic activity across manufacturing and service sectors.

Prior to joining Oxford Economics, Jeremy ran his own consulting firm based in Montreal, Canada providing a variety of economic analysis and forecasting services related to commodity prices, competitiveness, and the Canadian and US economic outlooks for the Washington, DC-based Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation, as well as serving as economic research director for the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy.

Born and raised in Washington, DC, Jeremy was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and McGill University, where he received his MA in Economics summa cum laude. He also speaks fluent French.

Principal Economist with experience forecasting global construction activity and cost escalation. In my current role I oversee Construction, Mining, and Maintenance forecasts for BIS Oxford Economics. I present our forecasts in conferences, webinars, and round table discussions, and I have featured in numerous media interviews.

Tariq Taherbhai is the Chief Operating Officer of Aon’s Global Construction & Infrastructure Industry Specialty. In his role, Tariq is charged with driving forward the operational excellence imperatives of the global specialty and ensuring that the full capabilities of Aon are properly delivered to its Construction & Infrastructure clients.

Andrew Patterson is the Global Manager of
Business Development and Business Manager of
Heavy Civil for Bechtel Infrastructure.
Andrew has over 21 years’ experience in the
industry. Throughout his 21-year career at Bechtel,
he has served in various senior management and
project execution leadership roles, including
regional president for Africa, business development,
commercial, construction, design, and contracts
management.

Having graduated in civil engineering in 1974, Keith joined one of the founder members of the Mott MacDonald Group and spent the first 10 years of his career in infrastructure design and project management, mostly in the water and transport sectors. On completing an MBA in 1986, he became involved with the planning, feasibility, and financial and economic analysis of projects, principally in the water and environmental sectors. Over the next decade he worked on numerous projects funded by the international finance institutions as well as by UK government bodies.

Keith has built career long experience in the planning, study and design of hydraulic structures, hydropower, urban drainage, sewerage, water supply and river engineering schemes. He has worked in numerous countries as well as in the UK. He ran the firm’s Water and Environment business from 1997 to 2002, before becoming the Group Managing Director in 2004, directing the firm’s expansion in North America and Australasia. Keith became Chair of the Group’s Executive Board in 2011, responsible to shareholders for the performance of the company and its strategic direction – a role he continued until mid-2019.

Keith was on the board of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering from 2011 to 2015, and its Chair in 2013; he was a member of the CBI’s Construction Council from 2013 to 2019; and a member of the Cranfield School of Management Advisory Board from 2012 to 2020.  He is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Paul, a consulting Partner, is a qualified Engineer and has spent the last +35 years supporting a range of industrial clients (Aerospace and Defence, Automotive, Engineering & Construction, Shipbuilding, Industrial Producers) in a number of line and consulting roles, often with a cost optimisation or operations improvement lens.

Over his 35 years’ experience, with 29 years at WSP, Tom has held a number of senior business leadership positions with WSP’s UK, Middle East and India regions as well as being closely associated with many of the company’s flagship projects and strategic clients. As Global Director of Property & Buildings and member of the Global Leadership Team, Tom is key to the strategic goal to be recognised as the leading global Property and Buildings consultancy. In addition to his global Property & Buildings remit, Tom is driving WSP’s global growth in digital and decarbonisation services. Tom has a strong interest in how ‘vertical’ buildings and ‘horizontal’ infrastructure interact to create extraordinary places in our cities. Tom is acutely aware how digitisation and densification will change the landscape of our cities and the need for planners, designers, clients and citizens to co-create a new type of place-making with health, technology, decarbonisation and biodiversity at its core.