Dame Jo Da Silva DBE RDI FREng

Dame Jo da Silva is a leading industry voice in the fight against climate  change, nature loss and inequity. As Global Director of Sustainable Development at Arup, she leads firm-wide activities to progressively ensure Arup’s work creates safe, resilient, and regenerative places where communities thrive - now and in the future.

Jo studied engineering at the University of Cambridge, after which she joined Arup as a graduate trainee. Her early career focussed on buildings progressing from designing a bus shelter to Chek Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong, followed by art galleries, secondary schools, and university campus buildings. Throughout, a common thread was her world view that engineers play a key role creating lasting infrastructure with social purpose.

Experiences working in rural India, emergency aid work in Rwanda and with UNHCR in Sri Lanka leading their post-tsunami shelter response 
strengthened Jo’s desire to create a positive impact with her work. In 2007, she founded Arup International Development, a non-profit arm of Arup 
to specialise in safe and resilient infrastructure and cities in emerging economies. She has worked with the World Bank on their Global Programme 
for Safer Schools, on Urban Risk in African Cities for DFID and created the City Resilience Framework with Rockefeller Foundation.

Her expertise and advocacy in the development of humanitarian  engineering solutions and urban resilience has won Jo international 
attention. In 2021, Jo was awarded a damehood for services to international development, having previously received an OBE for her services to humanitarian relief. In 2017, she was awarded a Gold Medal from the Institution of Structural Engineers and in 2021 awarded Royal 
Designer of Industry.

She has served as Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering since 2009.