Peter Heymann Andersen is appointed group chief operating officer with responsibility for the global market business units buildings, transport, architecture, landscape & urbanism and water.

Michael Thorndahl Simmelsgaard is appointed group chief operating officer with responsibility for the global market business units energy, environment & health and management consulting.

Mathew Riley is appointed group chief operating officer with responsibility for the geographical business units Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, UK and Germany.

All three are internal candidates and will be sharing responsibility for driving Ramboll’s operations in the global and local dimensions reflecting Ramboll’s operating model.

“I am extremely pleased to welcome three very talented leaders onboard the Group Executive Board. Peter Heymann Andersen, Michael Thorndahl Simmelsgaard and Mathew Riley have already proven themselves highly valuable to the success of Ramboll and I am sure they will be instrumental in leading the next phase in Ramboll’s fantastic growth journey together with the rest of the Executive team,” said group CEO Jens-Peter Saul.

Mathew Riley (BSC Urban Estate Management) comes from a position as managing director for Ramboll UK where, for the last four and half years, he has been responsible for a significant turnaround of Ramboll’s UK operations. Mathew has more than thirty years of experience from senior positions across the property and construction industries as a client, contractor, and more recently a consultant where he worked for Arcadis for seven years prior to joining Ramboll. He is on the board of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) in the UK where he served as chair from 2018-2019.

Reflecting on his appointment to the group executive board, Mathew commented: “Last year we celebrated our 75th anniversary, having grown from 2 people in Denmark to a 16,000 strong global consultancy. It is an exciting time for the business and I’m delighted to be joining the Group Executive Board and look forward to working across a range of geographical business units.

“The UK business has enjoyed a strong start to the year, with an impressive forward orderbook. Having achieved high client loyalty scores and a record employee satisfaction rating, the UK business is in great health and well positioned to take advantage of any market bounce back. The UK business has a talented leadership team who I look forward to continuing to work with in my capacity as UK Chairman. The process of appointing my successor is well underway and will be announced in due course.”

With the change the group executive board now consist of the following roles:

• Group chief executive officer: Jens-Peter Saul
• Group chief financial officer: Marianne Sørensen
• Group chief operating officer, markets: Peter Heymann Andersen
• Group chief operating office, markets: Michael Thorndahl Simmelsgaard
• Group chief operating office, geographies: Mathew Riley

The changes to the group executive board follow the transition of Markku Moilanen and Hilde Tonne to CEO-positions outside Ramboll and Søren Holm Johansen’s retirement after 32 years in the company.

“I thank Markku, Hilde and Søren for their great contribution. It is a testimony of our ability to develop leaders in Ramboll that two of our three most senior leaders now take on CEO positions, just as our focus on the leadership pipeline now allow us to recruit three new executive members internally,” added Jens-Peter Saul.