Third annual Global Leadership Forum Summit, organised by the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC), gets underway in Madrid.
The third annual Global Leadership Forum Summit, organised by international engineering federation, FIDIC, got underway today in Madrid, Spain, kickstarting two days of talks, debates and discussions with industry leaders and opinion formers on some of the key infrastructure, business and geopolitical issues facing the industry.
Opening the invitation-only event for around 100 global infrastructure leaders, FIDIC president Catherine Karakatsanis asked attendees to pause for a moment to remember founding member of the Global Leadership Forum and former chief executive of Mott MacDonald, Mike Haigh, who, very sadly and unexpectedly, died shortly before the summit.
“Mike was a long-time supporter of FIDIC and the engineering and consultancy industry, an active climate and sustainability campaigner and a keen promoter of a more sustainable, integrated infrastructure industry, underpinned by a diverse, inclusive, and digitally enabled workforce,” said Karakatsanis. Haigh was also a key driving force behind the decarbonisation initiatives that the Global Leadership Forum had developed and would have been in Madrid for the summit.
Welcoming global infrastructure leaders to the event, FIDIC’s president said: “It feels like we have been debating sustainability goals and regulations, the skills shortage, digital transformation, cost management and efficiency for many years. We are making progress, but is it too slow? Do we need radical culture change to speed up and embed progress?”
Karakatsanis said that industry and business change would feature prominently in the discussions over the two-day event in Madrid. “As ever, change and the increasing pace of that change, will be a constant theme of our discussions at this summit. Nowhere is this more clearly seen as in the fast-moving area of digital and technology, with the rise of AI, which has real potential to transform the way we do business and our working practices and methods into the future,” she said.
Setting the context for the summit, Global Leadership Forum advisory board chair Bill Cox, the CEO of Aurecon, said that the summit was taking place at an interesting, some might say tumultuous, moment for the world. Cox said that when he spoke to the summit 12 months ago, he talked about the old Chinese curse which speaks of “living in interesting times”. “For interesting read troubling. In considering my opening words this year, I reflected that there are a lot of similarities with where we were 12 months ago and the issues we face are on steroids compared to a year ago. So, there are similar themes to emphasise and address,” Cox said.
Cox said that the summit was meeting at a time when “history was literally being written day by day”. He said that the pace and scale of disruption in the world was only likely to increase but tackling the challenge of change would need collective leadership. “Uncertainty can be bewildering and exhausting, especially given recent world events, but I always think that challenges are better faced when you meet them head-on with resilience and also innovation in the way you address them and together.”
As well as addressing the issue of change and how to make it happen, the third Global Leadership Forum Summit was also due to discuss the climate crisis and decarbonisation, future proofing engineering, the next chapter for AI, carbon management and the net zero transition and how the industry works better together – and also the leadership needed to make that happen.
“Yes, we face challenges and uncertainty, but the future that we face is still an exciting one and one that will present us with opportunities that thanks to technology and innovation could be limitless,” said Bill Cox. “So, at this GLF Summit, let’s be optimistic, widen our sights to look beyond the particular and see the broader picture,” he said.
