Infrastructure in 2023: what are the big challenges for engineers?

Keith Howells

Keith Howells is the 158th President of the ICE.

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.

David Porter

David Porter is current ICE Senior Vice President. Porter is a trustee of the ICE and, until recently, held the learning society portfolio.

Porter is currently the director of engineering with the Department for Infrastructure (DfI), which is the roads authority for Northern Ireland. He’s the chief highways engineer.

He is also the head of the civil engineering profession with the Northern Ireland civil service.

He’s responsible for the development of the department’s professional and technical staff, engineering policies and standards, and health and safety. He also leads on procurement and the internal consultancy.

Previously, Porter was the chief executive of the Rivers Agency, the flood defence and drainage authority for Northern Ireland. He also held the posts of director of development and director of operations with the agency.

Porter is a past chair of the Northern Ireland region of the ICE. He’s been on the ICE Council three times: two terms as the Northern Ireland representative, and one as a general member.

He has also served on numerous committees and panels:

• He was a member of the Presidential Commission on the ICE Governance (the Orr Review).
• He chaired the member-led review of NOMCO, the Audit Committee, and the Qualifications Panel.
• He has been on the Committee of Management of the ICE Benevolent Fund.

Amongst various distinctions, Porter is a Fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering, was awarded the Poskitt Medal by the ICE Northern Ireland Region in 2017, and the Engineers Ireland President’s Award in 2018.

Ian Parke

Ian is currently the co-chair of the ICE’s Low Carbon Energy Community Advisory Board (CAB). He is also a reviewer of candidates for CPR & IPR and a Policy Fellow at the ICE.

Ian is the current UK president of the American Society of Civil Engineers and liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers.

His recent experience has been in renewable energy, working for EDF Renewables on a variety of projects including Battery Storage, solar, and on and offshore wind turbines. Ian worked at EDF for twelve years where in addition to working on renewables, he was the Fleet Civil Engineer for EDF thermal generation. Prior to EDF Ian was working on several energy related projects including underground gas storage and transmission.

Ian is an accredited storage tank inspector working within Nuclear and petrochemicals.

Ian is a former director of the Engineering Equipment and Materials Association and a former chair of the Civil Engineering Advisory Board for GENSIP (Coal Generators Safety & Integrity Programme).

Fiona Barbour

Fiona Barbour is a chartered civil engineer with more than 22 years’ experience, predominantly in the UK water sector, where she started as a hydraulic modeller specialising in urban flooding.

In her current role as business development manager at Mott MacDonald, she is working to expand the firm’s advisory services across Scotland and Ireland, having led its global water resources and flooding practice for five years.

Notable projects that Barbour has led include a review of the Grangemouth flood protection scheme for the Scottish government and an analysis of inland flood risks for Sefton Council, Merseyside, as part of an appraisal of its plan to safeguard the coastal town of Crosby.

She was also technical lead on the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office’s Global Future Cities Programme in Vietnam, which helped to improve Ho Chi Minh City’s flood resilience by creating a database of drainage assets.  

Barbour co-chairs the ICE’s Community Advisory Board on Sustainable, Resilient Infrastructure, advocating for resilience to become an integral design consideration for all engineers, not just specialists in the field.

Lewis Barlow

Lewis Barlow provides expert advice on whole-life decarbonisation for local authorities, developers and governments at the highest level.