Joanna Kennedy

Early life, education and family Born Joanna Alicia Gore Ormsby, in London, Kennedy was educated at The Abbey School, Reading and Queen Anne's School, Caversham and won a scholarship to Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford; she was one of just three females among over a hundred engineering students and graduated with first class honours in Engineering Science and the ICE Prize. She is the mother of two sons, one of them is the musician Pearson Sound.

Career Kennedy joined Ove Arup & Partners, consulting engineers, in 1972 and her projects as a design engineer included the M25 Runnymede Bridge and St Paul's Thameslink station. She was a founder of the firm's project management practice in 1990, became its leader for Europe in 2006 and was appointed Global Leader for Programme and Project Management in 2010. The practice was named the APM Project Management Company of the Year in both 2007 and 2012. She was a Trustee of the Ove Arup Foundation from 2010 to 2020. Hackney Empire, the Horniman Museum and she led the design team for the remodelled King's Cross St Pancras tube station.

She was Arup's project management director from 2008 to 2013 for the Francis Crick Institute and from 2009 to 2013 project director for the planned Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre.

She was a non-executive director of the property company Native Land from 2015 to 2023 and a director of the ERA Foundation from 2014 to 2024. a Commissioner of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, a Trustee of the Science Museum

She was appointed to the Council of the University of Southampton from 1996 until 1999, She was commissioned as a Major in the Engineer and Logistic Staff Corps in 2004 and was elected to the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers in 2005. 1997: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering 2007: Woman of the Year at the Atkins Inspire Awards for the built environment Dr. Joanna Kennedy2008: Woman of Outstanding Achievement – For Leadership and Inspiration to Others. 2017: Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art