Laing O’Rourke appoints group HR chief: delivery model and project impacts for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Laing O’Rourke has appointed Wayne Davis as chief people officer, adding HR representation to its overarching group executive committee for the first time from 12 January 2026. Davis joins from Premier Technical Services Group after 18 months and previously spent five years as senior vice president for HR at Emirates, following a long career across General Electric businesses. Group chief executive Cathal O’Rourke links the move to planned organisational transformation and talent development as the contractor pursues a “new delivery paradigm” for construction.
Technical Brief
- HR now gains direct representation at Laing O’Rourke’s overarching group executive committee level.
- Europe and Australia business units already had HR directors on their respective regional executive committees.
- Group chief executive Cathal O’Rourke explicitly links the appointment to transformation and organisational development capability.
- Davis publicly frames his approach around “empowered, well‑supported people” as the basis for performance outcomes.
- For major infrastructure contractors, HR at group executive level typically influences project staffing models, skills pipelines and site culture.
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.
