Mace brings in former Atkins boss to head up Americas business

Mace has brought in a former Atkins boss to head up its Americas business unit at the firm’s consulting arm.

Priya Jain has been handed the newly created role of president for the Americas, which covers the firm’s work in both North and Latin America.

Mace’s Americas business is based in New York and one of the firm’s four global hubs, along with Europe, Asia and the Middle East and Africa.

The firm has been in the Americas for around a decade with income from the region, which includes its ongoing rail programme delivery work in Canada’s biggest city Toronto, a CA$10.9bn (£6.4bn) scheme called Metrolinx which has been described as the country’s equivalent of HS2, coming in at about £60m last year.

Consult’s chief executive Jason Millett has said the US is one of the firm’s major growth targets this year and is looking at carrying out more infrastructure jobs on top of its corporate real estate work for clients such as sportswear giant Nike and pharmacy store chain Walgreens.

Jain joins from Texas-based, Nasdaq-quoted Atlas Technical Consultants, where she served as chief growth officer, and before that led Atkins’ expansion in North America in the role of senior vice president for sales and strategy. She also held several senior roles at US firm CH2M which worked with Mace on the London 2012 Olympics project.

Mace’s consulting business has boomed in recent years, employing 4,800 people by the end of last year. That figure is well over half of the wider group’s 7,500 staff with the number a rise of more than 80% from the 2,600 Consult employed a little over two years ago.

Consult’s revenue grew 7% in 2021 to £366m with the business expected to post a 30% growth last year to take turnover close to £480m.

Mace wants income from the division to be £500m by 2026 under a five year plan but group chair and chief executive Mark Reynolds said the figure could be reached two years early and was likely to end up north of £550m.

Last month it appointed Davendra Dabasia to the newly created role of chief operating officer.