
Sessions
13:00 – 13:30
Keynote: Building Safety
nima Virtual Conference 2023 / Speakers / Dame Judith Hackitt
Dame Judith Hackitt
Chair, Enginuity
Dame Judith Hackitt is a chemical engineer by training and spent her early career working in the chemicals industry – both in manufacturing and also as an advocate for the industry at national and international level. She is a former President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Throughout her career she has championed the importance of Engineering in delivering solutions which provide benefit to society and has been a role model particularly for young women wanting to enter the profession. Her current non-Exec roles are based around her continued passion for Manufacturing and Engineering, including the massive infrastructure project HS2.
She cares deeply about safety in the workplace and more broadly. From 2007 to 2016 she was Chair of the UK’s Health and Safety Executive and in 2017 conducted an Independent Review for UK Government into Building Regulations and Fire Safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster. Since publishing her final report in 2018 she has continued to press for regulatory change and for industry culture change and her recommendations for radical reform of the regulatory system received Royal Assent in the Building Safety Act 2022. She acts as an Independent adviser to the UK Government and to the Government of Victoria on Building Safety.