Jo da Silva

Jo da Silva is the Global Director of Sustainable Development at Arup, leading the firm's activities to address the climate, biodiversity and equity crises through creating safe, inclusive and resilient communities whilst safeguarding the planet. She is also an Arup Fellow and an Officer to the Group Board promoting excellence and innovation that delivers social outcomes.

She earned global recognition as an engineer who has applied knowledge and design expertise to improve safety, promote inclusivity, and enhance resilience of communities, cities and infrastructure globally. She led the planning, design, and implementation of a wide range of buildings, infrastructure, and urban regeneration projects for Arup, and has also worked extensively in crisis and disaster contexts for non-governmental, United Nations agencies and multi-laterals.

Jo da Silva has authored numerous papers and publications and received an honorary doctorate in humanitarian engineering from Coventry University. She was previously a Fellow at Sydney Sussex, Cambridge University lecturing in Engineering for Sustainable Development and contributed to the guest Faculty for the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership.

In 2007 she founded Arup International Development to enable Arup to direct our technical excellence and creativity to improving human development outcomes in the global south working with national and local government and community-based organizations as well as international agencies such as the World Bank, International Federation of the Red Cross, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

She co-founded the Resilience Shift in 2016 to raise awareness and drive action to improve the resilience of critical infrastructure globally and is currently a Board Director.

She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2021, in recognition of her services to engineering and international, sustainable development. She previously received an Order of the British Empire for her services to humanitarian relief and was awarded the Gold Medal by the Institution of Structural Engineers in 2017.

Jo da Silva will be a member of the Holcim Awards 2023 jury for Europe.