AECOM has impressive senior executive women

Diversity and inclusion at every level of the company is key which is why globally AECOM has many impressive women leading from the highest ranks of the organisation.

Meet some of these highly talented women and learn more about the important work they do for prime employer AECOM.

AECOM executive Kim Timm is passionate about mentoring

Kim [pictured above] joined AECOM as a bursary student over 20 years ago. Since then she has worked in many different AECOM offices. She is currently based in the AECOM Centurion office in South Africa. This has given her the advantage of different approaches and ways of thinking. She has also worked on a wide range of fascinating projects, from nunneries and churches to conveyors and power stations. The diversity of these projects is one of the aspects that keeps her inspired and loving her work.

Her passion sits in the technical side of engineering. She enjoys managing projects and ensuring they run smoothly, but her favourite part of the work is solving problems. She feels that by mentoring those that are just starting their career, it enables them to look at things in different ways, hopefully more holistically. She helps them to understand that technical solutions cannot be considered in isolation from practical considerations.

She has been recognised Mentor of the Year at the 2019 CESA Aon Engineering Excellence Awards.

Lara Poloni is AECOM's President

Lara Poloni started as a young urban planner 20+ years ago and has risen up to become AECOM’s President. Lara Poloni knows first-hand the challenges faced by females trying to build a career in the infrastructure sector.“Every year the bar is being raised in terms of workplace equality. Unfortunately, for years the infrastructure sector has lagged others in terms of gender diversity and equality, and we’ve really being playing catch up,” said Lara. "AECOM recognise the benefits of a truly equitable workplace and plays our part in helping to achieve that. Our people are proud to be part of an organisation that is leading change. Whether that’s senior leaders mentoring the next generation of female leaders, tackling pay equity, creating fully flexible roles or introducing domestic violence leave, the key is to be relentless.”

Shirley Adams is Chief Human Resources Officer at AECOM

Shirley is responsible for all Human Resources services globally. Her areas of responsibility include talent acquisition, management and executive development, employee relations and training, performance management, diversity, organization planning and effectiveness, and the company’s performance-appraisal processes. She is also a member of the Executive Leadership Team driving the people transformation program for the global enterprise.

Previously, Shirley served as AECOM’s Senior Vice Present of Human Resources for its Europe, Middle East and Africa geography. Prior to joining AECOM in 2016, she held several roles during her tenure at Accenture, including Head of Global Geographic HR Operations, HR Managing Director of Accenture’s Global Management Consulting business and Global HR Business Partner. She holds a Joint Honours Degree in French & German from Durham University and received a Post Graduate Diploma in Business French & German.

Sarah Urbanowicz is AECOM's Chief Information Officer

Sarah leads Information Technology (IT) for the enterprise and is responsible for the development and execution of the global IT strategy, including overseeing its infrastructure and operations, information security and compliance, enterprise application portfolio, IT procurement, and digital portfolio management. Previously, Sarah was Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at AECOM, and was responsible for enterprise information security strategy, architecture and operations. Before joining AECOM, Sarah served as CISO at Hess Corporation where she was responsible for enterprise IT security strategy and operations.

Sarah holds an Honors Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.