Chris Williams-Lilley

Bringing innovation to UK transport

Chris Williams-Lilley is one of those rare people who can say he is a performance coach, innovation champion, and thought leader and mean it. His consulting firm, Leadership Champions (UK) has attracted clients such as AMEY, Cummins, Jaguar Land Rover, Network Rail, Manchester Airport Group, Highways England, HS2, High Speed Rail (NSW Austrailia) and over 20 other leading organizations.

He serves on the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Infrastructure Steering Group, which he was co-founder, as well as Network Rail's National Commercial Directors Forum (CDF), and most recently, led the design and delivery of a 100-day, 1.2bn pound framework mobilisation plan for a major prime contractor, gaining accolades from the client for demonstrating corporate capability, responsibility and innovative thinking.

Working closely with the University of Cambridge (Smart Infrastructure) and University of Surrey (Sustainability), RICS and others, Chris has delivered numerous industry conferences and public sector competitions, acting as chain and 'Expert Facilitator' / 'Entreprenuer in Residence' to further Technical Sustainability, Constructing Excellence, whilst improving Leadership through Main Contractor Category Management.

His public speaking roles typically includes 10 keynotes a year at major industry conferences, and he has managed a wide variety of focus groups on Intelligent City Hubs, Lean Construction, and High Reliability Organisations. Not to mention the Future of Station Design - which included support from Network Rail's then CEO, Iain Coucher, and Head of Stations, Mike Goggin.

He is interviewed and quoted frequently in the construction media, and is an active member of The Supply Chain School. His career has taken him across the world, working on many interesting projects and at many levels. Leadership Champions were finalists in the UKRIA 2018 Awards (Environment and Sustainability) for work delivered on the 140m pound West Anglia Main Line (WAML) capacity improvement project.