BrazilEngineering consultancy Atkins makes senior Middle East appointments
Design and engineering consultancy Atkins has made two regional managing director promotions; Johan Hesselsøe and Kathleen McGrail. Shadi Jebreel has also been appointed UAE Country Director for Atkins’ design and engineering business.
SNC-Lavalin engineering, design and project management consultancy Atkins has made three senior appointments among its Middle East & Africa operations: Johan Hesselsøe, as managing director for Atkin’s project management arm Faithful+Gould; Kathleen McGrail, in Hesselsøe’s former role as managing director for Atkins Acuity, the groups’ management consulting and financing advisory arm; and Shadi Jebreel as UAE country director for Atkins’ design and engineering wing.
Johan Hesselsøe
Having led Atkins Acuity in the Middle East and Africa for the past three and a half years, providing integrated technical and management advice to inform strategic and operational decisions for clients in the wider infrastructure, transport and energy industries, Hesselsøe will now be tasked with overseeing Atkins integrated project and programme management services business and driving growth through new and existing clients at Faithful+Gould.
Prior to joining Atkins Acuity, Hesselsøe spent over a decade with McKinsey & Company, where between the management consulting giant’s Copenhagen and Dubai offices he led a start-up team building a new Global Infrastructure Practice to serve clients in the infrastructure, transport and real estate sectors. He holds an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, together with an MSc from Copenhagen University.
Kathleen McGrail
New Atkins Acuity managing director Kathleen McGrail meanwhile joined the firm following close to five years as a senior manager with Deloitte, within the Big Four firm’s Program Leadership consulting practice. A MEng holder in civil engineering and management from Birmingham University (since complemented with an MBA from London Imperial College), McGrail first joined Atkins in Dubai in 2012, serving as Acuity director for the past three years.
Having also served for three years as a senior consultant for Shell International Oil Products, McGrail has altogether more than two decades of experience in transformation, programme and change management (which according to the firm she has applied on a number of infrastructure projects across the GCC), and will now be responsible for overseeing the Atkins advisory business – which includes strategic, financing and technical consulting among other areas.
Shadi Jebreel
Lastly, Atkins has also announced Shadi Jebreel as the new UAE country director for its design and engineering business. An architect by trade, Jebreel has held a variety of roles at Atkins for the past eleven years (originally in the UK and then UAE since 2011), including most recently as the firm’s Transportation & Infrastructure Regional Sector Director, working with clients such as Dubai Airports and the RTA. He has altogether close to two decades of professional experience.
