After an initial period in the U.K. Petrochemical Construction Industry, Mike Lomas immigrated to South Africa and spent 5 years in the field of structural engineering design. Thereafter he joined Savage & Lovemore and worked on various projects including toll roads, railways, harbours and industrial plants. Shortly after becoming the managing director of Savage & Lovemore in 1985, the business was amalgamated with Group Five and he was transferred to run the Structural, Mechanical, Electrical Instrumentation and Piping Subsidiary - a position he held for 5 years before being appointed as the group CEO. He internationalised Group Five during his ten year tenure as CEO, setting up operations in Hungary, Poland and Dubai.
Following retirement from Group 5, Mike was appointed as Chairman of Tubular Holdings, Non-executive Chairman Sea Kay Holdings, Council Member of The Institution of Civil Engineers representing the Middle East and Africa and Member of the SA Road Agency Limited (SANRAL) contracts committee.

Paul Jowitt is an Executive Director, of the Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology and a Professor of Civil Engineering Systems at Heriot Watt University. Paul’s major research and consultancy interests are sustainable development, risk, and the development of systems-level solutions within civil engineering, the built environment, and environmental management. He was the author of the ICE’s 6th Brunel International Lecture “Engineering Civilisation form the Shadows” which addresses the twin issues of Poverty and Climate Change, and he led the ICE’s Presidential Commission “Engineering without Frontiers”, examining the engineer’s role in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals. He chairs the ICE’s International Development Policy Group.
Paul is the lead investigator in a collaborative consortium between Heriot-Watt University and Cambridge University on the ISSUES Project - Implementation Strategies for Sustainable Urban Environment Systems - to facilitate knowledge transfer between researchers, policy makers and practitioners. He is a member of the International Jury for the Mondialogo Engineering Awards (sponsored by UNESCO and Daimler) and a Trustee of Engineers Against Poverty.

Ali Naidu commenced his career with the planning department of the Department of Water Affairs. He then moved on to design access roads to the Katse dam under the guidance of experienced engineers of Van Wyk & Louw (Africon). He thereafter spent several years in the structural engineering environment where he specialized in industrial and commercial structures. He spent several years with South African Breweries in the Engineering and Projects Division, where he was responsible for project management of several large multi-disciplinary projects.
Upon joining PD Naidoo & Associates, he assumed the role of Managing Director where the technical focus of the business was his primary responsibility. He is presently the CEO of PD Naidoo and Associates. He currently serves on the Board of Consult Consortium, a private company appointed by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, for the provision of basic water and sanitation in Mpumalanga (South Africa).

Ronnie Khoza is CEO of Construction Industry Development Board in South Africa, having been appointed in February 2007. Previously he worked as a Programme Manager-Procurement and Delivery Management for CIDB between July 2006 and January 2007, an independent consultant between 2003 and June 2006, a Director and Business Development Manager for Ninham Shand Consulting Engineers between 1999 and 2003, a Factory Manager for Chapelat, a sugar confectionery division of Cadbury Schweppes SA, a Production Manager at African Products, a starch and syrups division of the Tongaat-Hulett group, and a laboratory analyst at Lever Brothers.

Iraj Abedian is the founder and Chief Executive of Pan-African Capital Holdings (Pty) Ltd. He was professor of economics at the University of Cape Town, before joining Standard Bank Group in 2000 as Group Chief Economist. He was the founder and Director of the Applied Fiscal Research Centre (AFReC) at UCT and he has been a consultant on economics policy issues to public and private sector organizations in South Africa as well as internationally. His recent involvement in policy development in South Africa includes: The Transformation of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (1995), the RDP White Paper(1995), Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR 1996), Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), and the Presidential Review Commission (PRC 1997). He is a prolific researcher and has written numerous articles and co-authored books.
The Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals (ABSIP) in 2003 awarded him the title of Top Economist of the Year. He is an honorary Professor of Economics at Pretoria University, and serves on the Board of a number of organizations and companies.

Tim Akins is an Atkins Group Executive Board member and has been Managing Director of Atkins, Middle East and India since 1999. He is responsible for all Atkins' operations in the region as well as a team of over 2400 multidisciplined professionals spread over eight offices. With more than 30 years of practice in the construction industry, he brings with him a wealth of experience from business management, project management and technical direction of projects in the built environment, as well as first hand knowledge of working in the UK, Middle East and Africa.
Tim has been Chairman of the British Water Overseas Forum, the UK Consultants' Representative on UK Government Water Sector Steering Groups and the UK Water Industry's Representative on government trade and industry missions to both the Asia Europe Summit (1990) and Kosovo (1999).

Andrew Marsay is a consultant transport economist with 30 years experience focusing on the relationship between transport in all its modes and regional economic development. After nine years with Arup in the UK and then six years as Head of Transport Economics with the Symonds Group in London, Andrew returned to South Africa in January 2004 where he continues his professional career as adviser on transport policy and economics with Arup in Johannesburg.
Andrew is a regular contributor to transport conferences and seminars with leading edge thinking on both private and public transport infrastructure development priorities in South Africa. Most recently his work has included advice to the national Department of Transport on approaches to achieving a sustainable increase in transport infrastructure investment in South Africa.

Brian Bruce graduated as a civil engineer from the University of Cape Town on a Murray & Roberts bursary and joined the Group in 1972. He was appointed Group Chief Executive of Murray & Roberts in July 2000 following a career in major domestic and international project, company and divisional management, which included project and company turnarounds and various corporate management roles.
Brian was President of the SAICE in 1994. He served as the first Chairperson of the Construction Industry Development Board from April 2001 to October 2004 and thereafter served as a member of the CIDB Board until 2007. He is currently a Member of Council and the Council Executive Committee of the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also a member of the University of Cape Town Faculty Advisory Board to the Dean of Engineering and the Built Environment. Brian was awarded a Doctorate of Engineering (honoris causa) by University of Stellenbosch in 2004 and was awarded the President’s Medal of the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) in 2007, both in recognition of his contribution to development in the construction industry.

George Ofori, is a Professor at the National University of Singapore and Co-Director of the Centre for Project Management and Construction Law. He was a Teaching Assistant at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana (1976-77), and Senior Quantity Surveyor with G.A. Takyi & Partners, Accra, Ghana (1981-83). He was Head of Department of Building, National University of Singapore (2002-07). He has authored many papers, books and published reports. His main research area is construction industry development, focusing on the improvement of the industries of developing countries. He has been a consultant to many international agencies and governments, in Bahrain, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania. He is currently Deputy Chair of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST).

Ron Watermeyer is a director of the consulting firm Soderlund and Schutte, Johannesburg. He has been at the forefront of many development initiatives in South Africa since the early 1990s including the reinterpretation of building regulations, the classification of sites in terms of geotechnical characteristics and building practice, changing construction methods, technologies and practices to facilitate socio-economic development imperatives and the conceptualisation and implementation of a construction procurement system to reflect societal expectations. He has developed several South African National Standards and is currently leading the development of ISO standards for construction procurement.
He served as a vice president of IStructE in 2001/02 and SAICE’s 101st President in 2004. He is currently the chairman of the Joint Civils Division and has been a trustee of Engineers Against Poverty since 2005. In 2009 the University of the Witwatersrand conferred on him a senior doctorate (Doctor of Engineering) for his published works on the delivery of infrastructure.