Laing O’Rourke has appointed Andrew Wolstenholme OBE as its group technical director, a role in which he will lead the function and be responsible for the delivery of technical excellence for clients, enhancing the company’s digital capability and its health and safety priorities.

A Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and experienced infrastructure business leader, Wolstenholme will start in role on 4 May and report to Group CEO Ray O’Rourke. He will also be appointed to the company’s Group Executive Committee (GEC).

Wolstenholme has been working with Laing O’Rourke for some time in an advisory capacity, assisting with the technical complexities of major projects.

During his career, he served as construction director for the Heathrow Express Rail Link and programme director on Terminal 5, then as BAA’s director of capital projects running a £10bn development programme across 10 airports. He was CEO of Crossrail from 2011 to 2018 and has also served as a non-executive director at HS2.

Wolstenholme has a first-class honours degree in civil engineering and an honorary doctorate from Southampton University. He is a former chair of the Construction Leadership Council and was vice president at the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Laing O’Rourke CEO Ray O’Rourke said: “I’m delighted Andrew has agreed to join us. He has known our business as a customer and an advisor. His knowledge of our sector will ensure our engineering and innovation are seamlessly integrated with operational discipline and client connectivity.

“He understands the power of our experience in technical excellence and disruptive thinking, and he believes in our ambitious plans to enable sustainable high performance across our directly employed workforce and to deliver certainty for clients.”

Wolstenholme replaces outgoing group digital and technical director, Dr Damien Buie who, since 2019 has helped the company utilise data to bring its digital vision to life and has created dynamic teams in both the Europe and Australia operating Hubs, led by Joanna Vezey and Sarah Crennan respectively.