ACE leadership changes: what Bower and Faiz mean for UK project delivery
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
The Association for Consultancy and Engineering has appointed Mott MacDonald group director for external engagement Denise Bower as chair of ACE Group and Tetra Tech managing director for environment, sustainability and planning Rukhsana Faiz as chair of the Environmental Industries Commission. Bower brings experience from the Major Projects Association, the Infrastructure Client Group and previous work with the Infrastructure and Projects Authority on major project preparation and delivery. Faiz adds 28 years’ international consultancy, government and industry experience as ACE targets skills investment, pipeline certainty and responses to geopolitical and regulatory risk.
Technical Brief
- Environmental Industries Commission functions as ACE’s environmental wing, giving Faiz a direct route into regulatory debates.
- Bower’s prior executive director role at the Major Projects Association brings deep exposure to complex infrastructure governance.
- Her professorship in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Leeds anchors leadership in academic best practice.
- Long-standing membership of the Infrastructure Client Group means Bower is familiar with client-side delivery constraints and assurance.
- Previous collaboration with the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (now NISTA) focused on improving major project preparation and delivery discipline.
Our Take
The Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) has been prominent in recent UK policy debates, with our database showing its ‘Delivering Infrastructure 2050’ work in Wales and Scotland, so new leadership is likely to shape how those long‑term strategies are framed and pushed with devolved governments.
Mott MacDonald’s presence in this ACE leadership context coincides with its current expansion moves, such as the Leed Engineering & Construction acquisition in Australia, signalling that UK‑based consultancy voices influencing ACE policy are increasingly tied to globally scaled delivery capability.
With ACE and the Environmental Industries Commission both in the frame, this leadership refresh comes as National Highways and other UK clients are commissioning water quality and environmental performance programmes, suggesting ACE’s committees may lean more heavily into environmental compliance and runoff management issues highlighted in our recent infrastructure coverage.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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