Speakers

François Bosch, Société des grands projets 
François is Deputy COO of the Grand Paris Express and has 18+ years’ experience in major infrastructure projects, more particularly metros and railways. He was involved in technical, commercial and operational roles on Tours-Bordeaux SEA high speed railway, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel Crossrail stations (Elizabeth line), High Speed 2, Copenhagen metro line 4 extension to Sydhavn. He is now in charge of facilitating the delivery of the Grand Paris Express as a whole by providing a multi-disciplinary and transverse support to the operational teams.

Richard Dexter, Herrenknecht
Richard Dexter is Managing Director at Herrenknecht International. His role involves the active participation in the quotation, negotiation, sale and site support, for the internationally known tunnelling equipment manufacturer Herrenknecht in the UK and Ireland. He is responsible for all of the safety, quality, commercial and support activities of the UK subsidiary and has direct responsibility for all P & L.

Gill Howard, The Brunel Tunnel Museum
I joined the Brunel museum as a volunteer in 2017. I live locally, although facing the museum from the other side of the great divide, the Thames! I was introduced to the museum when my husband’s uncle came to stay with us. He was an engineer and Professor of Engineering at Monash University, Melbourne Australia. I knew that IKB was a great hero of his and that he had a copy of the Brunel and Chains photograph on his office wall. We took him to visit the museum. There I saw a flyer reqesting volunteers and I have been there ever since. I had no previous engineering connections at all, but am now passionate about the story of the tunnel and the fantastically talented Brunel family. I also lead history walking tours of Rotherhithe on behalf of the museum and look after the small museum shop.

Robert Smith, CVB JV
Robert is a Senior Project Manager on Thames Tideway East and has 16+ years’ experience in large scale urban tunnelling projects across the UK and Singapore. With an extensive background in tunnelling, often working from complex and challenging drive sites utilising a variety of tunnelling methods, he is responsible for the overall delivery of the tunnelling works on the project.

Allen Summerskill
Allen is a Chartered Civil Engineer with over 27 years of experience specialising in urban flood alleviation, drainage infrastructure and combined sewer overflow (CSO) improvement schemes. He has been part of Tideway for over 15 years and has seen the project from inception, through feasibility, planning, design and to delivery. His current role is Stakeholder & Consents Manager and enjoys the challenge of delivering complex engineering in highly constrained urban environments and the associated interface with various stakeholders.

James West, Arup
James West is a transport architect at Arup. He was part of the original design team of Tottenham Court Road Crossrail (now Elizabeth line) Station from 2010 before working on the design of Heathrow Terminal 2 and Thames Tideway Tunnel. James returned to Crossrail from 2015 to help deliver the architecture of Tottenham Court Road and then Canary Wharf Station as Lead Architect from 2017 to completion in 2022.