Michelle McDowell is Chair of Civil and Structural Engineering at international design and engineering firm BDP. She recently won the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award, and was the first woman to chair the Association for Consultancy and Engineering in the UK.
McDowell fell into her career by chance. Her father brought home a leaflet from the Construction Industry Training Board, where they ran annual courses for girls doing maths and physics. As part of the course, McDowell spent a week at Sheffield University, visiting a design office, a construction site, a steel fabrication shop and a glass furnace. Shortly afterwards she decided that engineering was the path for her.
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