Let’s admit it shall we? There couldn’t have been many in the sector who really held out hope that a woman would be running the ship at a major contractor so soon could there? So the news that Anna Stewart has gone all the way to the top at Laing O’Rourke is worth marking big time, writes Denise Chevin.
In one way it might be surprising that the mould has been broken at the UK’s largest private contractor. But it shouldn’t be. Ray O’Rourke, who will remain executive chairman, doesn’t always want to shout about what he’s doing and therefore can appear rather traditional, but his firm has left its competitors trailing on many fronts. It’s embraced off-site construction and employment of direct labour and is at the vanguard of new technology, sponsoring professorships and research at top universities including Oxford and Cambridge and research in construction and engineering.
Stewart is not an outsider, of course, and earned her spurs at the £4.3bn contracting firm over many years. She started her career as a trainee quantity surveyor at Laing in 1982 having dropped out of a maths degree. And even before O’Rourke bought the contractor for £1 in 2001, Stewart’s card was marked for the top. Of late the 48-year-old Glaswegian has occupied the chief commercial and financial roles and has garnered a reputation for being a highly astute operator with a sharp antennae for containing costs and driving up margins.
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