Lip Service to Leadership

I am the Chief Executive and Founder of Class Of Your Own (COYO), a social enterprise that provides innovative and engaging education programmes for the built environment sector. With over 17 years of experience in industry as a land surveyor working on a wide range of projects, I have a deep understanding of the industry and its challenges, opportunities and potential.

My passion is to inspire and empower the next generation of professionals in surveying, architecture, engineering, and construction, by creating positive, contextualised and relevant STEM learning experiences.

Through COYO's flagship Design Engineer Construct! (DEC) curriculum, we have reached thousands of students and teachers around the world, offering them a full learning and teaching programme, work experience programmes and bespoke 'DEC Awards' and accredited qualifications through our dedicated awarding organisation TQUK. and recognised progression routes into the sector. Over the years, we have helped our students to discover exciting career pathways into Built and Natural Environment careers and many are now 'DEC Ambassadors' in their own right, returning to their schools to inspire and support their younger peers.

I am a strategic procurement leader with a passion for driving social value, sustainability, and innovation through procurement. With a proven track record in delivering major procurement projects across public and private sectors, I specialise in outcome-based procurement—helping organisations de-risk procurement while maximizing measurable impact and value for money.

Through my work, I have successfully contributed to large-scale construction programs, procurement transformation initiatives, e-sourcing implementations, and innovative commercial models. My expertise extends across social value integration, sustainable procurement strategies, NEC4 and MSC contracts, negotiation, and commercial frameworks.

As the founder of iProcure Ltd, I support organisations in simplifying outcome-based procurement—helping clients define measurable outcomes, align supplier responsibilities, and drive long-term success. I work with SMEs, NGOs, start-ups, and major public/private sector clients to embed responsible procurement strategies that deliver both commercial and social impact.
 

A Quantity Surveyor working for Kier Construction, Shannon has over 8 years experience working for Kier. With a past history working in Education for a brief time, Shannon is passionate about changing the perceptions of Construction to enable to make it accessible to the younger generation, especially breaking down barriers faced by young females.

The topic for her research dissertation in 2023 was ‘Changing Perceptions: helping to recruit young females into the construction industry in the Southeast’ where she discovered that unfortunately there are long standing negative opinions about the industry that still exist. 

The Construction industry itself, the government, the educational bodies and parents need to do more in breaking down those barriers to enable us to see long term change to help tackle the skills gap in the industry.