People
As a B Corp, Social Enterprise, and Investors in People (Silver) we do business differently. We are a close-knit family of collaborative, multidisciplinary creative thinkers able to respond to challenges by creating a team of experts that match the project—and the planet’s—needs.
Twenty-one years ago we came together to form the Useful Simple Trust, an employee-owned Trust, joining our sister companies Useful Projects Thomas.Matthews Useful Studio and Think Up. Our unique organisation means that clients benefit from our team’s depth of experience, as well as our rich understanding of wider practice in the built environment.
Being part of the Useful Simple Trust means the Expedition team is highly motivated and committed—because our values mean that our combined success is shared equitably. We share part of our profit, and re-invest the rest in research, social value, and environmental projects.
Image Credit: Team London Bridge / Mickey Lee
Working at Expedition
At Expedition we value everyone’s contribution. Our positive mentoring and coaching programme encourages all our engineers to be curious and creative in the way they learn and develop their skills. We are committed to transparency, and measure and report our journey towards a more equal diverse and inclusive practice. Find out more about how we do this below.
Working Practices
By thinking collectively, we learn from insights and innovations within our teams. We also draw on the depth of knowledge and experience of the Trust. We value collaboration highly, which means we experiment and evolve new ways of working together – within the Trust, and externally with clients and partners.
The advent of hybrid working has brought new challenges and opportunities, but the oversight of every person and every project remains a critical part of our processes.
Creative and Social
We like to celebrate success, so it’s never hard to find a reason to come together for a drink or a meal. We also like to get together creatively, and regularly join forces on our Useful Giving projects. Sometimes we share ideas on design retreats in the woods, and twice a year all our Trustees and benefactors meet up to remember and reflect on why we do what we do.
Our team also enjoys breakfast yoga, all-weather touch rugby, walks along the River Thames, lunchtime table tennis, family picnics, charity races – in fact, anything positive and low impact that makes us feel good about the day.
Learning & Development
As part of our Trust ethos, we believe strongly in coaching and developing every person at the Trust. For our young graduates this starts with working towards ICE Chartership, but everyone gets involved in our weekly lunchtime programme of talks and design reviews so we never miss a chance to learn from each other.
More formal learning is driven by our Future Skills Programme, which is set to achieve Carbon Literacy Platinum level.
Knowledge Sharing
We are committed to sharing our knowledge across the construction industry, including through our well-publicised initiatives, such as the Get it Right Initiative. This is an industry analysis and report, leading to training programmes eliminating errors in construction.
Our engineers sit on key industry panels and speak regularly at webinars and events across the UK; we are a small company, but you can see how far our influence reaches when you Meet the Team.
Many of us also teach Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes around the UK, and we’re proud to have pioneered the not-for-profit Constructionarium. This is a real-life learning programme that has taught over 13000 engineering undergraduates since it began in 2004.
In 2021 we ran an 8-week design programme for Schools 21 with a group of sixth form students to promote widening participation in design and engineering. As is often the case with EDI, we learnt as much from the students as they did from us.
Personal reflection
"I was elected by my colleagues to serve 3 years as a Trustee when I was 26 – an opportunity I can’t imagine getting anywhere else! I learnt so much about how the Trust is run, how being employee-owned affects how we do things and how the employees are kept central to all business decisions. The experience made me a better communicator and, therefore, a better engineer."
Ailsa
Principal Engineer
Meet The Team

Ailsa Roberts
Associate

Alessandro Maccioni
Associate Director

Alex Garman
Associate

Amy Green
Associate

Andi Troci
Principal Innovation Engineer

Andrea Charlson
Associate Director

Andrew Komarnycky
Principal Civil Engineer

Andrew Weir
Director

Anna Biggs
Sustainability Consultant

Annabel Judd
UST Director of Business Development

Bruce Martin
Associate Director

Carrie Behar
Head of Sustainability

Chin Han Cheung
UST Group Commercial Manager

Chris Shrubshall
Associate Director

Chris Wise
Senior Director

Clement Thirion
Associate Director

Clotilde Robin
Associate Director

Damian Eley
Associate Director

Daniel Raymond
Associate Director

David Hewlett
Senior Engineer

Dragos Hepcal
Finance Assistant

Ed McCann
Senior Director

Emma Thompson
Executive Assistant

Eva MacNamara
Associate Director

Fiona Wyatt
Associate Director

Fred Labbe
Director

Gabriela Costa
Associate

George Oates
Director

Hayley Cormick
Associate

Hazel Needham
Principal Structural Engineer

Helen McGarry
Senior Engineer

Ian Small
Lead Innovation Consultant

James Parker
Associate

Jamie Skipper Reed
Graduate Civil Engineer

Juan Pablo Peña
Graduate Engineer Construction Innovation

Judith Sykes
Senior Director

Kimberley Ertl
Structural Engineer

Kirsty Sutherland
Associate

Lana Harding
Engineer

Lottie Macnair
Senior Consultant

Luis Rocha
Senior BIM Technician

Martha Smellie
Sustainability Consultant

Mike Sefton
Associate

Neil Reeder
Associate

Noel Shirran
Associate

Oana Sala
Senior Innovation Engineer

Pete Winslow
Director

Rachel De Matei
Consultant Innovation Engineer

Reema Xavier
Graduate Energy Consultant

Sapna Halai
Senior Engineer

Seán Walsh
Director

Simon Bradbury
UST Head of Finance

Steven Duckworth
UST IT Manager

Tom Hull
Director