Company:AECOM, Germantown, MD, USA
Company Description:AECOM is one of the largest engineering companies ($20B) and was created to design, build, finance and operate the world’s infrastructure. We are proud of our heritage of iconic projects from building the Hoover dam to rebuilding the World Trade Center. AECOM is #332 on America’s Fortune 500. AECOM is the #1 ranked Engineering Company according to Engineering News-Record (ENR) magazine.
Nomination Category:Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category:Female Executive of the Year – Business Services –More Than 2,500 Employees

Nomination Title: Jill Bruning, Executive Vice President and General Manager

Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated executive since the beginning of July last year (up to 525 words):

Women leaders are uncommon in defense contracting companies and even rarer in the male dominated engineering and construction industry. Jill Bruning is an outstanding AECOM executive that is having extraordinary success and making a difference in both! Since July 2014, Jill has been the General Manager and Executive Vice President over two AECOM organizations both providing highly secure engineering and infrastructure services to the United States Government.

Through 2014, Jill led the Global Security Group which was responsible for the successful elimination stored chemical weapons in the United States. These programs were delivered on an extremely accelerated schedule to comply with the US chemical weapons treaty deadline. Jill was responsible for the $4+billion program portfolio with over 5000 employees that successfully closed four major sites resulting in safe elimination of 27,000+ tons of nerve and blister agents; nearly 90% of the US stockpile. While completing these successful Chemical Demilitarization Programs, the sites achieved record breaking safety performance (Operational Health and Safety Voluntary Protection Program Star Status – highest award achievable) and project management (Project Management Institute Project of the Year) recognitions.

Jill delivered high profit margins to the company based on unique schedule incentives for these high hazard operations. Through acceleration of schedules, the risk to the communities was eliminated faster, the communities recognized economic benefit through thousands of local jobs, and the world was made safer through destruction of these dangerous weapons.

In January 2015, following acquisition of engineering company URS by AECOM, Jill was asked to stand up a new AECOM organization focused on the highly classified United States Intelligence Community. Jill was a change champion integrating operations from two large engineering organizations. She developed the organizational strategy, designed the customer focused architecture (co-created with customer input), selected leadership and led transition phases (completed within 30 days). Her portfolio delivers fully integrated life cycle design, build and operate capabilities in engineering, technical services, mission support and intelligence analysis expertise. Jill successfully manages thousands of AECOM employees and subcontractors in classified environments, and her new portfolio programs have improved communication, diversity, profitability, safety and security this year.

Additionally, under Jill’s leadership this strategic business unit won a new multi-hundred million dollar classified operations and maintenance contract resulting in 10% growth in the first 6 months of the organization. Jill is highly regarded in the government intelligence community as evidenced by her recent selection to the Board of Advisors of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance in Washington, DC.

Jill grew up in her engineering career without a female role model or mentor, so she is passionate about mentoring female engineers and engaging in STEM advocacy. Since October 2014, Jill has served on AECOM’s corporate Diversity and Inclusion Committee where she has spoken out for gender diversity and unconscious bias. Jill led AECOM’s International Women’s Day celebration in March 2015. Jill is additionally a member of the Washington DC Women in Technology Leadership Foundry, which prepares women to break the last glass ceiling – the board room. Jill was a previous Stevie finalist in 2010 and it has since been her dream since to achieve a Stevie. She extraordinarily deserves to win this award in

Provide a brief biography of the nominated executive (up to 125 words):

Jill is General Manager and Executive Vice President of Intelligence Community Services at AECOM ($20B). She is responsible for leading a large ($1B+), global business area (5000 employees) that delivers full life-cycle design, engineering, construction and operations programs to US Government Department of Defense, Department of State and Intelligence Community clients. She holds a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from University of Illinois. She has published over 27 papers related to cryogenic technology. Jill serves on AECOM’s corporate Diversity Committee and is on the board of directors for several AECOM subsidiary companies and industry associations. Jill and her husband Jeff own an organic farm in rural Missouri and have five children and four grandchildren.