Making Your Mark This Women’s Day
March 06, 2025 
Conference tickets are selling fast. Book yours today!
Wondering where to stay? Take advantage of our special room rates
If you haven’t yet booked your accommodation, we have reserved a limited number of rooms at preferential rates. Take a look at the varied options and secure your room directly with the hotel of your choice by quoting the promotional code or using the booking link listed on our website. The availability of rooms with preferential rates will be limited from March onwards. We therefore recommend that you make your reservations at the earliest opportunity.
This week, we are celebrating the women in our industry as part of International Women’s Day and Women in Construction week; giving us the perfect opportunity to shine the spotlight on the outstanding women joining us to speak in Milan this May.
Helen Berresford: Helen is passionate about designing for people, championing an activity-driven design approach that puts human experience and requirements at the heart of the design process. The breadth of Helen’s knowledge allows her to expertly advise clients on every step of the project journey, from the early due-diligence and strategy, to creating efficient and inspiring spaces that encapsulate the culture of an organisation.
Betsy Brady: Betsy works in Knight Franks London Development Consultancy where she advises developers looking to regenerate the City of London’s stranded assets. Her focus is ensuring the next generation of commercial property within the Square Mile has sustainable purpose throughout its life cycle and meets the anticipated needs of the future workforce. Betsy has to solve the complex equation of the financial implications of the changing nature of the workplace and how can the desired outcome be achieved.
Victoria Caines: Victoria is an Associate Director at Turner & Townsend alinea, who specialises in MEP services. She recently joined the BCO National Judging panel, with her first judging role in 2024.
With over ten years of experience, Victoria has worked across various sectors, primarily focusing on commercial offices. Her expertise extends to both fit-out projects and shell-and-core developments.
Sophie Davies: Sophie is an Associate at Heyne Tillett Steel who takes a particular interest in heritage projects. With her research-based approach and eye for detail, she is adept at solving problems with existing fabric to mitigate risks in the early stages of design. Over her ten years in structural design, she’s worked on a variety of different projects, from complex high-rise commercial buildings to historic conversions and retail refurbishments, and she’s experienced working in multi-disciplinary teams on large and small developments over the full project lifecycle.
Katy Ghahremani: Katy is one of Make’s directors and has been a Maker since 2004. Her portfolio spans a variety of sectors and includes designs for a number of prestigious hotels around the world, including the award-winning Temple House hotel in Chengdu, China. Katy is currently leading Make’s high-profile refurbishment of Hornsey Town Hall. She’s passionate about interiors as well as architecture, and is often called upon to help clients develop their brand philosophy and identity.
Nicola Jones: Nicola is Customer Experience General Manager for GPE, with a passion for creating efficient customer journeys to increase customer satisfaction and customer retention. Nicola has extensive experience working cross property functionally to develop customer strategies that align with the business’s priorities and initiatives.
Angela Joseph: Angela is Director of Development working across a number of commercial developments within the Brookfield Properties portfolio with a current focus on delivery. Angela has experience working across both Australia and the United Kingdom as both a Quantity Surveyor and in Development with broad sector experience having worked on large scale commercial, life science and cultural projects. Angela is also the current Chair of the judging panel for the BCO Awards for London and South East.
Lauren Lewis: Lauren is a BCO NextGen committee member and actively involved in Arup’s London Property Leadership team. She is a mechanical building services engineer with a passion for low energy, architecturally integrated designs within the commercial property sector. Lauren has led the MEP design and delivery of over 20 co-working spaces for a well known global brand as well as being involved in significant masterplans such as Television Centre and a recently completed 330,000ft2 redevelopment close to Liverpool Street ; both of which push the dial on achieving low carbon buildings.
Philippa Wagner: Philippa Wagner is a leading voice in the hospitality industry, celebrated for crafting future-focused brand experiences that combine cultural insights with strategic consumer understanding. As founder of PeoplePlacesSpaces, she collaborates with global brands such as Ennismore, Gleneagles, TFE Hotels, and Locke to develop innovative concepts and reimagine guest experiences to ensure lasting impact in a changing market.
Chiara Zanello: Chiara Zanello is a Corporate Real Estate Manager within Willis Towers Watson’s Corporate Real Estate team in Europe, with over 10-years experience helping organisations to achieve strategic business goals by shaping and delivering successful Real Estate strategies.
Learn more and read their full biographies here.
Meet the BCO Awards Judges – What makes an award winning building?
Winning a BCO Award is an accolade to be proud of – a coveted industry benchmark for excellence in the workplace. Our annual awards programme celebrates quality design, commerciality, and sustainability.
What does it take to win an award? It is not a competition in architecture, scale of the project or budget, but an assessment across weighted criteria including aims and enterprise, value for money, utilisation of BCO guidance
and best practice, internal environment, quality of spaces, ESG, and finally how the building “lifts the spirts”. The assessment process is thorough – dedicated volunteer judges pour over the details of every submission and visit shortlisted projects, evaluating each against the stated criteria.
Would you like to understand more about the entry or assessment process, how the scoring is undertaken by the judges, how to present your project to have the best chance of success, and gather some insight and tips from the BCO judges?
Mike Burton, National BCO National Awards Chair and Building Engineering Director at AECOM, ably supported by a team of regional BCO Awards Judges, including Angela Joseph from Brookfield Properties and Mark Lacey from Turner & Townsend alinea will be on hand during coffee and lunch breaks to answer any questions you may have. Look out for the stand!
Want to know more? Download this year’s conference brochure. Here you will find detailed information on all aspects of the 2025 conference programme, including the party at Superstudio Più, as well as the photography competition, back for the 6th year running.
By BCO Media 
