Construction Journal

Abigail Blumzon FRICS is an APM-accredited project manager with more than a decade of experience leading complex, multidisciplinary construction projects.
She heads Bailey Partnership's Chichester office and South Coast project management team, with a particular focus on facade remediation and fire safety compliance across residential and public-sector estates.

As chair of Bailey Partnership's DEI committee and a core member of the training and development committee, Abigail is passionate about inclusive leadership, team development and knowledge-sharing.

She actively contributes to industry-wide conversations on mental health, equity and professional growth.

Abigail also serves as vice-chair of governors at three local authority nursery schools, reflecting her commitment to community and public services.

Raj is an associate director in project management in real estate and has worked for Turner & Townsend for more than 14 years in both the UK and Kazakhstan. Her experience includes theatre refurbishments, an internationally renowned business park in the Midlands, a major council office refurbishment, and several education projects.

She also specialises in feasibility and options appraisals and project management under the NEC suite. Raj is a mentor in construction for high school pupils. She also leads the graduate development programme at Turner & Townsend's Birmingham office.

Gareth manages PCL Construction's estimating and risk management group for British Columbia (BC) and Yukon in Canada. He has nearly 18 years of construction experience working both for general contractors and cost consultants in the UK. For the past 14 years he has worked for PCL in Vancouver, BC, in the commercial, healthcare and civil sectors. He was previously RICS BC chapter chair and an RICS Canada board member.

Sarah is a chartered quantity surveyor and an associate professor in the University of Nottingham's Faculty of Engineering. Her academic interests include information management and modelling for the built environment. She is an editor and author of the UK BIM Framework guidance and has authored RICS and isurv material on benchmarking and data modelling for cost management.

Before joining the university Sarah spent almost 30 years in industry, working on construction projects for contracting organisations before moving into consultancy, with 11 years at Gleeds as a senior director and head of insight and analytics.

Melissa is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor with over 16 years' experience in the construction industry on every stage of a project, from feasibility stage to contract completion. During her career, she has experienced a wide range of roles, as employer's quantity surveyor, contractor's quantity surveyor, dispute advisory consultant and assisting lead quantum expert witnesses.

She is passionate about supporting construction charities to provide future generations with equal opportunities to diversify the construction industry.

Elliot has more than 30 years' experience of providing specialist commercial and project management support services before and after contracts across infrastructure, residential, office, leisure and mixed-use development projects.

He founded Elliot Ltd Chartered Quantity Surveyors in 2008, subsequently joining Capita real estate and infrastructure as a director in 2014. In his present role at Ridge, he leads an infrastructure project management office aiming to improve outcomes and optimise value for customers and stakeholders.

Mark is a project director at Turner & Townsend. He is a chartered quantity surveyor with over 20 years' experience working for main contractors and then as a specialist consultant providing contractual and commercial advice, as well as the preparation of claims and dispute resolution.

Mark is adept at identifying the issues, providing practical advice and managing the risk for clients on contentious issues. He has experience in all forms of dispute resolution as an expert advisor and expert witness.

Anil Sawhney PhD PMP FHEA FRICS, is the head of construction knowledge and practice at RICS. He is a construction and infrastructure sector expert, an educator, a researcher, and a ConstructionTech enthusiast. In his role at RICS, he is involved in producing the construction and infrastructure sector’s body of knowledge, guidance, education, and training.

Anil is the current chair of the International Cost Management Standards (ICMS) standard setting committee and the co-chair of the AECO working group of the digital twin consortium.

He is also an adjunct faculty at Columbia University, visiting professor at Liverpool John Moores University, and an adjunct faculty at the University of Southern California.

Steven has spent the bulk of his career in private practice as a quantity surveyor and project manager, with experience of most types of construction project. He joined RICS in September 2016 and is one of the senior specialists in the standards and professional development department, responsible for the quantity surveying and project management groups.

He oversaw the recent publication of the New Rules of Measurement suite of guidance, he leads the RICS Value Toolkit guidance working group, and is responsible for the forthcoming revision to the UK Black Book.

Rachel is a chartered quantity surveyor and an associate director at Atkins Réalis in Birmingham. She has more than 25 years of professional experience across various sectors including offices, commercial and residential development, specialising in the construction and refurbishment of sustainable offices and mixed-use facilities.

She has extensive experience of CAT A and CAT B offices for developers and occupiers, and providing masterplanning and feasibility estimates for mixed-use and commercial schemes. She is an AssocRICS assessor and RICS awards judge, and an external examiner on the BSc (Hons) quantity surveying and BSc (Hons) construction management at the University of Derby.