Steering Committee

Many years ago, I was working as a freelance commercial, contracts or project manager. On two occasions, I was employed by claims consultants JR Knowles, who were justifiably regarded as the experts on construction claims. I must have done something right, because at the end of the second job, they invited me to work for them on a full-time basis. I enjoyed this type of work, so I accepted the offer.

I have to admit that whilst I had a basic idea of claims in those days, I was a long way from being an expert. I did, however, have the distinct advantage of working alongside some very knowledgeable people and had access to the JR Knowles knowledge base so I set about educating myself. During this time, I worked hard to develop my craft and as I was dealing with claims and related issues on a daily basis, I quickly became proficient at preparing and responding to claims and produced some good work.

Fast forward several years. I was working for a project management consultancy on a very large project that had gone wrong. One of my responsibilities was to review the contractor’s many claims. Looking at the claims, I was amazed that this respected contractor, who had constructed many large and iconic projects, seemed unable to produce claims which contained even the most basic requirements for awards to be made. When I considered the amount of money being claimed, this was even more unbelievable. It occurred to me however, that whilst I had been fortunate to obtain a good education on the subject during my JR Knowles days, most people in the industry did not have this benefit and seemed to be making things up as they went along. To me, this indicated that there was something seriously wrong with the industry and consequently, I decided to help people in such a position by sharing my knowledge of claims through my book, Construction Claims and Responses.

After the book was published, I was contacted by people enquiring about further training on claims. At the time however, I had to advise them that, to my knowledge, there was no training available. This coincided with me leaving the corporate world to start a small consultancy practice that specialisis in contractual matters, claims and disputes. Having identified this gap in the market for training, I was inspired to develop training courses on claims, which we marketed under the Claims Class brand. The courses were well received and I soon found that people were asking my advice on the subject of claims on a regular basis.

Having got to know many people on our courses and having corresponded with many more, it occurred to me that people involved in claims came from three broad categories – people who had gained a high level of proficiency through experience, those who had a working knowledge, but wished to improve their knowledge and those wishing to gain practical experience in the first place. Claims had by now become a specialist subject and could justifiably be regarded as being a sub-profession within the industry. I consequently considered that those people who had gained a level of expertise should be recognised as having done so in the same way that a quantity survey may gain recognition through membership of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Also, given the interest in training that we had discovered, it also seemed that it would be a good thing for like-minded people to be able to share knowledge, find information and to help each other and this was particularly true for those who were aspiring to become proficient in the subject of claims. This is pretty much what other respected organisations do through professional institutes, so the idea of a claims institute was born.

I had the opportunity to discuss this idea with Roger Knowles who was extremely enthusiastic about the concept and offered to support the initiative and subsequently, the ICCP was born. I, along with my colleagues in my consultancy business put many hours of work into developing the concept, setting membership criteria, organising systems, procedures, forms and templates, registering the organisation as a non-profit organisation and setting up banking and payment facilities. We commissioned a website, the corporate branding and created service agreements with the various people and organisations who would be needed to manage and administer the institute. Needless to say, none of this came free, so I backed my belief in what had now become the ICCP by funding all the set-up expenses and the initial operating costs through my consultancy business.

I hope that the story of how the ICCP came about shows that I am dedicated, enthusiastic and passionate about everything that the ICCP stands for and what it can do for its members.

I have been involved with the construction industry for over 22 years’ and I have a passion for understanding complex construction projects and to developing entitlement on behalf of my clients. My experience covers time and quantum related matters and I have represented clients as an advocate as well as being appointed as Expert.

I am actively involved with professional institutions such as RICS, CIOB, CIArb, Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors and Academy of Experts and I have become involved with Constructing Excellence by advising on their panel about “organisational resilience” along with being a STEM Ambassador.

I am keen to share my knowledge and experience and to develop the construction professionals of tomorrow. I am already a mentor for ICCP members and I am proud to be President of the ICCP and welcome the opportunity to share my knowledge with the ICCP and its members.

My engagement with the ICCP is to humbly exchange some of my knowledge gained from the 30+ years of Consultancy experience across the Globe for Public/Private and various IFI’s in development projects. Being elected to the Steering Committee gives me an edge to encourage my professional friends to this profound institution and thereby take up responsible positions enabling them and the institution to grow together.

While I have served as a Contract Specialist, Project Manager, Team Leader, etc., there is a great variety of specialists within the ICCP who should share their experiences handling Claims, without subverting the classroom examples available as references. In my personal engagements in feasibility studies, design & engineering, supervision, etc., I have found it is vital to state that all stages necessitate appropriate deliberations to mitigate potential Claims salvaging project delays & overruns.

ICCP members are a strong team with backgrounds in engineering, quantity surveying, project management and other professions who are ambassadors for Claim identification, resolution & mitigation. It is an honour for me to represent them and together we can depict some of the necessary innovations within and beyond the Institution.

My career in the Industry has included senior positions in major Middle-Eastern government Clients, prestigious Consultants, and major international Contractors. I’ve started my own practice ProADR a few years ago, which specializes in providing assistance in matters of Contract Management, Claims, Dispute Avoidance and Resolution in the Middle East (Qatar in particular) and around the World as well. I am a Civil Engineer and holder of two post-graduate degrees as well from UK on Construction Law, an accredited Adjudicator, a chartered construction manager, and a fellow of many international organizations on Contracts, Claims and Project Management. I have recently won the FIDIC 2021 Contract Users’ Award among very respected finalists in various categories.

My main objective is to develop and present to the Steering Committee ideas and methodologies that pave the way to make ICCP a worldwide-known organization with thousands of members across the globe. I believe ICCP deserves much higher recognition in the Industry.

I have been involved in the construction industry since my early teens as my father was a carpenter and joiner and later a QS, Chartered Builder, and construction company owner. So, in the mid-60s I was already holding one end of my father’s measuring tape on-site, obviously when safety wasn’t such a hot topic as it is quite rightly now.

So I suppose it was natural that I followed in my father’s footsteps and studied to become a QS myself. I later found that those teenage site experiences plus stints as a bricklayer’s labourer were invaluable stepping stones along my career path.

In those years I have worked in private practice for some of the most historically significant employers in the QS sphere and also hopped over the fence into the contracting world. In so doing I have managed to enjoy a very varied and exciting journey through many corners of the industry from prisons to pump houses, high rises to hotels, reclamation to residential, piling to palaces, district cooling to dredging, hospitals to helicopter bases in countries from the U.K. to the Far East. It has been a great privilege and now I have finally added rail to my CV too!

Whilst in this region I have been heavily involved in the administration and development of the RICS starting in Saudi Arabia in the early 90s and being co-founder, with Sophie Llewellyn, of the RICS UAE Group at The Club in Abu Dhabi almost 20 years ago in May 2003 in the year that Sheikh Mohammed announced his vision to sell property to foreigners which sparked the biggest construction boom in the region to date.

And due in no small part to the influence and legacy, as I am sure Andy will agree, of the late great Roger Knowles, arguably one of the most influential pioneers of the construction claims industry, I have spent the best part of the last 25 years here in this region specialising in claims. So it brings me great pleasure to have been elected to this committee and I hope I can use my experiences to grow and develop this special institution in cooperation with my fellow committee members.

I have been involved with the ICCP since the beginning. Having spent 5 years’ in general management and marketing roles for large audit and advisory firms, I joined Andy Hewitt at his construction consultancy practice in 2011. I have since spent the past 7 years’ working within the construction industry putting my marketing and operations knowledge to effective use.

Somewhere along the way, Andy’s idea for the ICCP emerged and it fitted that we would continue to work together to bring the ICCP into existence. Today, I am responsible for overall management of the institute from A-Z. As a growing institute with an energetic and passionate membership community, each day brings a new challenge and I am proud to be part of the growth of the community.