Susan Leal Named Senior Vice President for Water in the Americas

AECOM, an international provider of professional technical and management support services for government and commercial clients, announced earlier this week that Susan Leal has been appointed to chief strategy officer and senior vice president for water in the Americas. In that role, she will lead strategies and implementation to grow the water business throughout the Americas region.

“AECOM has long been committed to assisting its clients in achieving sustainability and water security in the face of climate change,” said Global Water Managing Director of AECOM Rob Andrews. “Susan Leal’s experience and deep understanding of how to create practical solutions for our clients will be a great asset to the company.”

Leal served from 2004 to 2008 as general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. In that position, she led the effort to update the Bay Area’s seismically unsafe water system. She also oversaw a major upgrade to the city and county of San Francisco’s outdated wastewater system. She was a founding member of the Water Utility Climate Alliance, a coalition of large water utilities tasked with proactively addressing climate change issues.

Leal recently completed two years as a senior fellow of Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. During her fellowship, she co-authored “Running Out of Water” with Harvard professor Peter Rogers. She is currently an associate of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and she sits on the advisory board of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Berkeley.

AECOM has long supported a strategic interdisciplinary approach to its consulting and engineering practice. It works with a wide range of public and private utilities, agencies and corporations concerned with creating physical structures designed to limit their effect on and withstand climate change. Leal’s new position will enable AECOM to deepen those relationships and further its role as a cutting-edge firm committed to sustainable practices.

Source: AECOM