Joanna Kennedy

Joanna Kennedy (born 22 July 1950),^[1] is a British civil engineer and project manager who was Global Leader for Programme and Project Management at Arup until 2013 (a director from 1996). She is a patron of Women into Science and Engineering (WISE),^[2] which she helped launch in 1984.^[3] From 2015 until 2023 she was a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery,^[4][5] latterly as deputy chair of the Trustee Board, and she chaired the project board^[6] for the Inspiring People redevelopment which was completed on time for the gallery's reopening, after three years closure, in June 2023.^[7][8] In 2024 the project was short-listed for the RIBA Stirling prize.^[9]

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.^[10] She is the mother of two sons, one of them is the musician Pearson Sound.^[11][12]

Kennedy joined Ove Arup & Partners, consulting engineers, in 1972^[13] and her projects as a design engineer included the M25 Runnymede Bridge^[14] 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^[15] and 2012.^[16] She was a Trustee of the Ove Arup Foundation from 2010 to 2020.^[1]

She was project director for redevelopments at the Southbank Centre designed by Richard Rogers, the National Maritime Museum Cornwall,^[17] 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^[18] and from 2009 to 2013 project director for the planned Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre.^[19][20]

She was a non-executive director of the property company Native Land from 2015 to 2023^[21] and a director of the ERA Foundation from 2014 to 2024.^[22][1]

Kennedy's other appointments have included Vice-Chairman of the Port of London Authority,^[23] a Commissioner of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, a Trustee of the Science Museum^[22] and a member of the Engineering Council.^[10] She was a Trustee of Cumberland Lodge from 2001 to 2011 and 2013 to 2018^[1] and is a Trustee of Poole Museum Foundation.^[24]

She was appointed to the Council of the University of Southampton from 1996 until 1999,^[1] and to the Royal College of Art from 2001 until 2016 (also chairing the Buildings & Estates Committee).^[25] She was commissioned as a Major in the Engineer and Logistic Staff Corps in 2004^[26] and was elected to the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers in 2005.^[1]

• 1994: Honorary Doctor of Science at the University of Salford
• 1995: Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours^[27]
• 1997: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering^[28]
• 2007: Woman of the Year at the Atkins Inspire Awards for the built environment^[29]

• 

  2008: Woman of Outstanding Achievement – For Leadership and Inspiration to Others.^[23]
• 2013: First Woman of Engineering at the CBI/Real Business Awards.^[30][31]
• 2017: Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art^[32]

• Portraits of Joanna Kennedy at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Joanna Kennedy interview about Runnymede Bridge in 1981 film What’s a girl like you? Women in engineering from 10:58