FIDIC announces winner of 2021 Future Leaders Award

09 Sep 2021

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FIDIC has announced the 2021 winner of its annual Future Leaders Award at an online event which took place today (9.9.21).

The FIDIC Future Leaders Awards acknowledge and promote the outstanding achievements of future leaders in the consulting engineering industry worldwide and also encourage effective participation of future leaders in FIDIC. Speaking at the awards presentation, FIDIC CEO Dr Nelson Ogunshakin said: “These awards recognise the contribution of young professionals to the FIDIC Future Leaders initiative which is so important to FIDIC and to the future of the engineering, construction and infrastructure industry.”

Commenting on the 2021 awards, the chair of the FIDIC Future Leaders Council, Adam Bialachowski, said: “The judging process for this year’s awards involved reviewing the entries made and coming up with a final decision on the winner and runners up. I would like to thank this year’s judging panel for the awards which was made up of FIDIC board members - Louis Villarroya Alonso, Mark Phelig, along with Jomanah Albtoush, Chituwa Sinkala, Daduna Kokhreidze and Nadia Van der Waltova.”

This year, the judges decided to award a winner and also a highly commended prize.

The highly commended prize was awarded to Julie DiCicco, an associate and environmental engineer with Dillon Consulting Limited from Canada. DiCicco led the firm’s first community-wide climate change vulnerability assessment for an indigenous community and Dillon Consulting’s first use of the PIEVC Protocol, a protocol that projects the probability and severity of future climate changes using historical data.

Commenting on DiCicco’s success, FIDIC president Bill Howard said: “Julie’s ability to manage and coordinate large-scale projects under various technical disciplines for both municipal and Indigenous clients quickly propelled her into a senior level role. Her dedication to the consulting engineering profession and her community, as well as her passion for climate change solutions and her work in indigenous communities, are an example to the industry and impressed our judges and have rightly gained her this recognition.”

The winner of the 2021 FIDIC Future Leaders Award was announced as Cosmin Tobolcea from Romania.

With more than 16 years’ experience of the implementation and supervision of construction contracts in Romania and internationally, Tobolcea has been involved in many projects as a team leader, engineer/supervisor and consultant and was described by the judges as someone who also seeks to share knowledge and learnings from his work.

Currently the general manager of PROTOBY, one of the leading engineering and consulting companies in Romania, Tobolcea also has a wide experience of working with and advocating for FIDIC contracts. Commenting on his success, FIDIC president Bill Howard said: “Cosmin has been very active within FIDIC, playing a key role in the setting up and development of the Future Leaders group and participating in international and regional FIDIC conferences and other events.

“From 2018-2020, Cosmin was chair of the FIDIC Future Leaders Committee and a member of the FIDIC Diversity Task Force. He has also sat on the FIDIC Sustainable Development Committee and is currently a member of the FIDIC Capacity Building Committee. He is also a member of the FIDIC Credentialing Certification Board which oversees the content and processes of the FCL’s certification programmes.

“Cosmin is an enthusiastic advocate of FIDIC and the role of future leaders within the organisation and he has played an influential role in raising awareness amongst FIDIC member associations to be more aware of future leaders and giving them opportunities to develop and flourish. All of this, allied to a proactive approach to the promotion and advancement of young professionals in our industry make Cosmin Tobolcea a worthy winner of the 2021 FIDIC Future Leaders Award.”

Commenting on his success, Cosmin Tobolcea said: “I am truly honoured to receive this amazing award. Working with FIDIC and volunteering for the industry has defined who I am today professionally and I would strongly encourage all young professionals out there to get involved with the global FIDIC family, which so defines the international consulting community. It is the job of the future leaders to shape the future!”

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