Keith Howells
ICE
senior vice president
Keith Howells
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 has been a member of the Cranfield School of Management Advisory Board for the last eight years.
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.
He has now stepped down from the Board of Mott MacDonald but continues to act as an adviser to the company and as a Pension Scheme trustee.
