50 Remarkable Thought Leaders in Rail Construction

Introduction

Rail construction is building the world that comes next. Every tunnel bored beneath a city, every viaduct arching across a valley, every kilometre of new track connecting regions that were previously too distant to collaborate is a physical argument for what infrastructure can do. The global rail construction pipeline currently stands at six trillion US dollars, with annual spending forecast to reach 627 billion US dollars in 2026 alone. That scale of investment does not deliver itself. It is delivered by people, and the quality of the thinking those people bring to how rail is planned, funded, engineered, and led determines whether the trillions are well spent or wasted.

This matters more urgently right now than at any point in living memory. High-speed rail is expanding across Europe, Asia, and increasingly North America, while freight rail networks in Australia, Canada, and the United States are being upgraded to handle demands their original designers could not have imagined. At the same time, the industry is grappling with a crisis of cost and schedule overruns that has shaken public confidence in the case for rail investment. HS2 in the United Kingdom, once heralded as Europe's flagship infrastructure project, has become a global case study in what happens when construction begins before designs are stable, when schedules are driven by political ambition rather than engineering reality, and when the lessons of previous megaprojects are not properly embedded into how organisations are led and governed. The stakes of poor thought leadership in rail construction are not abstract. They are measured in billions of dollars and in the erosion of community trust that takes decades to rebuild.

The people on this list have shaped how the global rail construction industry thinks about its hardest problems. They span programme directors and CEOs, engineering professors and independent analysts, construction advocates and workforce champions, policy architects and digital transformation pioneers. Several have led or are leading the largest rail infrastructure programmes on earth. Several are the most credible independent voices available for understanding where the industry is heading and why. Several are doing the unglamorous work of connecting the people who build rail to the tools, techniques, and professional community they need to get better at it. Geography spans the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, the Middle East, Europe, and Scandinavia. Disciplines span civil and structural engineering, operations and commercial leadership, safety and workforce development, policy and regulation, and construction management.

If you lead an organisation building, operating, or investing in rail infrastructure, these are the voices worth following. To discuss how Jonno White can support your leadership team in the infrastructure sector with workshops, keynote presentations, and executive offsite facilitation, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why Following Thought Leaders in Rail Construction Matters

The rail construction industry has a paradox at its heart. It is one of the most technically complex industries in the world and one of the least culturally disposed to learning openly from itself. The reasons are partly structural. Projects are long, typically spanning five to fifteen years from concept to opening, which means the teams that make the key early decisions are rarely the same teams that experience the consequences. Organisations are fragmented, with clients, consultants, contractors, and regulators each operating in overlapping but distinct information ecosystems. And the culture of engineering has historically prized technical expertise over reflective practice.

The result is that lessons from megaproject failures, cost escalations, and schedule overruns are repeated at a remarkable rate across regions and eras. The UK's 2025 Stewart Review into HS2's governance found that the same patterns that derailed Crossrail, that complicated Boston's Big Dig, and that plagued California's high-speed rail programme had embedded themselves again: construction starting before designs were stable, political pressure driving schedules rather than engineering maturity, and contractual structures misallocating risk. Following the right thought leaders in rail construction is one of the few available correctives.

For organisations building high-performing leadership teams inside major rail programmes, the work of connecting around ideas is only part of the equation. Jonno White works with executive teams in the infrastructure sector to build the communication frameworks, accountability structures, and team alignment that translate insight into action. To discuss a keynote, workshop, or executive offsite for your leadership team, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect.

How This List Was Compiled

This list was compiled through extensive research across the disciplines that constitute rail construction and rail infrastructure globally. Selection criteria prioritised genuine contribution to the field over seniority of title, with deliberate efforts to surface voices from programme delivery, civil engineering, workforce development, safety leadership, and digital transformation alongside the more visible executive and policy voices. Geographic diversity was a priority, with representation sought from North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. Gender diversity was similarly prioritised. The list deliberately includes voices the reader may not yet have encountered alongside names already well established in the field.

Category 1: Megaproject Programme Leaders

The delivery of major rail infrastructure is unlike any other management challenge. These leaders are either currently directing or have recently directed some of the world's most complex rail construction programmes, and their perspectives on cost, schedule, governance, and organisational learning are essential reading for anyone leading in this space.

1. Mark Wild | HS2 Ltd

When Mark Wild took on the chief executive role at HS2 Ltd in December 2024, he inherited what the UK Transport Secretary would later describe as "an appalling mess." Wild had previously led the recovery of Crossrail, the 19 billion pound Elizabeth Line in London, transforming one of Europe's most troubled infrastructure projects into a fully operational railway. His experience there informs every aspect of his approach to the HS2 reset. Wild has been remarkably candid in public about the failures that created the current situation, identifying three core issues in his March 2025 letter to the Transport Secretary: construction began before designs were stable, schedules were driven by political pressure rather than engineering maturity, and scope changes were introduced progressively without understanding the downstream consequences.

Wild's willingness to name these problems publicly, rather than manage the narrative, is itself a form of thought leadership the industry needs more of. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and holds both a first-class engineering degree and an MBA from the University of Leeds, and his return to a major troubled programme after the successful Elizabeth Line delivery makes him one of the most closely watched rail construction leaders in the world today.

2. Sarah Watterson | Brightline West

Sarah Watterson serves as President of Brightline West, responsible for all aspects of development, design, and financing of the 21 billion US dollar high-speed rail project connecting Las Vegas and Southern California. Her background spans development, financing, and asset management across major transit-oriented and large-scale infrastructure projects, giving her a rare perspective that integrates the engineering, commercial, and community dimensions of major rail construction. Watterson has been a visible voice at Women in Rail forums on the leadership capabilities that high-speed rail development in North America requires.

Her career includes leading the development of Fiserv Forum, a 550 million dollar arena complex completed through a public-private partnership, and serving as CEO of Drive Shack. She is one of the most commercially sophisticated development executives working on a major rail construction programme anywhere in the world, and her role at Brightline West, the nation's first privately funded true high-speed rail project, gives her a perspective on what it takes to finance, design, and deliver rail infrastructure without public ownership of the project company.

3. Rachel Burckardt | WSP USA

Rachel Burckardt brings more than 40 years of engineering and project management experience to her role as Senior Vice President, Senior Supervising Civil Engineer, and Northeast Freight Rail Business Line Lead at WSP USA. Her technical work spans every mode of ground transportation from high-speed rail to commuter rail, urban transit, light rail, and bus systems, and she has been instrumental in some of the most complex northeast corridor rail infrastructure projects in the United States. Burckardt is among the most credentialled civil engineers in American rail infrastructure and a consistent advocate for rigorous project controls and schedule management discipline.

Her current projects include technical review of Green Line light rail projects in Boston, expansion of intercity rail between Boston and New Haven, grade crossing improvements across New England, and a multimodal transit study for the Grand Junction freight rail corridor in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Burckardt was a Leadership Journeys speaker at Women in Rail 2025, reflecting both her professional stature and her commitment to building the next generation of rail engineering talent.

4. Joanne Griffiths | Network Rail

Joanne Griffiths was appointed Programme Director of the Trans Pennine Upgrade in 2024, one of the most significant active rail construction programmes in the United Kingdom. With more than 25 years of rail experience spanning major programme integration and system certification, she brings a distinctive combination of technical depth and programme management rigour to one of the most complex active rail construction environments in Europe. Griffiths has been a featured voice at the Institution of Civil Engineers on the future of rail connectivity and sustainable infrastructure, and her work on embedding systems engineering thinking into large programme structures reflects some of the most important advances in how major rail construction is managed.

Her track record on the Greater West Programme integration and Network Rail's System Engineering capability, including the certification of complex railway systems under challenging operational constraints, strengthens her credibility as a practitioner-level voice on how large-scale rail construction programmes achieve quality and safety outcomes without sacrificing schedule.

5. Susan Millington | Network Rail

Susan Millington serves as Head of Programme Management in Capital Delivery at Network Rail, one of the UK's most demanding infrastructure organisations. With a railway career spanning more than three decades, she has led some of the most ambitious efficiency and innovation programmes in the UK rail sector, including programmes that have delivered substantial cost savings across complex capital portfolios. Her work focuses specifically on the integration of emerging technologies into capital delivery and the challenge of managing legacy infrastructure while adopting new construction methods.

Millington was a featured speaker at Technology in Rail 2025, where she presented on building delivery models fit for future technology adoption and the systems thinking approach needed to collaborate effectively across disciplines in a large programme environment. Her perspective on sustainable technology adoption in active rail construction is highly respected among UK infrastructure professionals. For more on building the leadership frameworks that make rail technology programmes succeed, see my blog post '35 Essential Thought Leaders on Team Culture (2026)' at consultclarity.org/post/35-essential-thought-leaders-on-team-culture.

6. Justin Vonashek | MTA Metro-North Railroad

Justin Vonashek became President of MTA Metro-North Railroad in April 2025 after serving as its Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer since 2023, and was named one of Railway Age's Top 15 Most Influential Industry Leaders for 2026. His leadership has combined a deep commitment to safety culture with practical people development for large, complex organisations. At Metro-North, he has supported major infrastructure investments across New York and Connecticut, including the construction of four new Bronx stations as part of the Penn Station Access project, and a nearly 8 billion dollar capital plan for 2025 to 2029 covering fleet renewal, signalling upgrades, and state of good repair work.

His emerging leader development programme and executive fieldwork initiative, which places senior leaders on shifts alongside frontline employees, reflect a leadership philosophy that connects organisational culture to construction and maintenance performance. Vonashek also led Metro-North to 98 percent on-time performance in 2025, demonstrating that people-focused leadership and operational excellence reinforce rather than trade off against each other.

7. NHSRCL Programme Leadership | National High Speed Rail Corporation India

The Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail project, India's first dedicated high-speed rail corridor, is one of the most ambitious infrastructure programmes currently under construction anywhere in the world. The programme involves building 508 kilometres of new track with 12 stations, including extensive viaducts, bridges, and India's first undersea rail tunnel. The National High Speed Rail Corporation of India is delivering the programme in close partnership with Japanese Shinkansen technology partners, generating insights into high-speed rail construction methodology that are relevant to practitioners globally.

The organisational and engineering challenges involved in delivering a project of this scale in one of the world's most densely populated corridors, managing thousands of land acquisitions, complex civil engineering works, and the transfer of world-class Japanese rail construction knowledge to an Indian delivery context, are producing one of the most significant new datasets on megaproject delivery in a generation. The NHSRCL leadership team's public communications on programme milestones and lessons are essential reading for anyone interested in high-speed rail construction outside traditional Western contexts.

Category 2: Freight Rail Construction and Operations Leaders

North American freight rail represents the most productive and operationally sophisticated freight rail system in the world. These leaders are shaping the infrastructure investment decisions, construction programmes, and operational strategies that determine the system's capacity and resilience for the next generation.

8. John Orr | Norfolk Southern

John Orr has emerged as one of the most influential voices in North American freight rail, recognised by Railway Age readers as one of the industry's most influential leaders for both 2025 and 2026, and named Railway Age's 2026 Railroader of the Year. As Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Norfolk Southern, he has led a significant cultural and operational transformation with particular emphasis on building an energised and motivated workforce as the foundation for safe and reliable infrastructure performance.

His public statements on the relationship between culture, operations, and network performance are among the most substantive executive-level perspectives available on how human leadership connects to rail construction and maintenance outcomes. Orr has been consistently clear that workforce culture is not a soft add-on to infrastructure delivery but is the core variable that determines whether infrastructure investment translates into operational results.

9. Tracy Robinson | CN

Tracy Robinson became one of the most visible women leading a major freight railroad when she took on the chief executive role at Canadian National, one of North America's largest and most sophisticated rail networks. Her leadership has been recognised repeatedly at RailTrends, the industry's most prestigious annual forum, as exemplifying the blend of operational discipline, strategic clarity, and workforce focus that defines excellent freight rail leadership.

CN's capital investment programmes under her leadership have included significant track construction, bridge renewal, and capacity expansion projects across Canada and the United States. Her perspective on how to balance infrastructure investment with operational performance, and her track record navigating both the USMCA trade environment and the COVID recovery period, is highly regarded across the North American rail industry.

10. Janet Drysdale | CN

Janet Drysdale serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Canadian National, and was named one of Railway Age's Top 15 Most Influential Industry Leaders for 2026. Her work sits at the intersection of commercial strategy, supply chain connectivity, and the infrastructure investment decisions that determine how effectively rail construction investment translates into commercial value.

Drysdale is a respected voice on the question of how freight rail networks align their construction and capital programmes with the evolving needs of their shipper customers. Her perspective on industrial development, transloading, and the strategic role of rail connectivity in modern supply chains is widely cited in industry forums, and her commercial leadership through the period of post-pandemic supply chain disruption and CPKC merger activity has drawn significant attention from the broader transportation sector.

11. Justin Broyles | R.J. Corman Railroad Group

Justin Broyles was named President and CEO of R.J. Corman Railroad Group in 2025 and was simultaneously recognised as one of Railway Age's Top 15 Most Influential Industry Leaders for 2026, reflecting both the pace of his rise and the genuine breadth of his influence across the short line and construction services sector. With 25 years of railroad experience including emergency services, storm response, construction initiatives, and commercial management, Broyles brings a perspective on the construction services side of rail infrastructure that is distinct from most executive voices in the space.

His ability to translate market insight into field-ready execution is frequently cited by industry peers as one of his most valuable qualities. R.J. Corman's role in railroad construction and maintenance, storm response, and short line operations makes his perspective on construction methodology, workforce, and the commercial realities of delivering rail work on active networks particularly relevant to practitioners across the full spectrum of rail construction.

12. Gina Trombley | Wabtec Corporation

Gina Trombley serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer for Wabtec Corporation, one of the world's leading suppliers of equipment, systems, and digital solutions to the rail industry. Her perspective on the supply chain dimensions of rail construction, the technology transition underway in rolling stock and signalling systems, and the commercial relationships between major rail operators and their equipment suppliers makes her one of the most practically useful voices on how the global rail construction industry is evolving at a systems level.

Trombley was a featured speaker at RailTrends 2025, the most substantive annual forum in North American rail, and is a recognised voice on the intersection of commercial strategy, technology adoption, and rail infrastructure investment. Her understanding of both the operator and supplier sides of major rail construction and renewal programmes gives her analysis a comprehensiveness that single-perspective voices cannot match.

13. Jim Vena | Union Pacific

Jim Vena became one of the most discussed figures in North American rail when Union Pacific named him CEO in 2023, and his subsequent proposal for a transformational merger with Norfolk Southern has made him perhaps the most closely watched rail executive in the world. Railway Age named him the 2025 Railroad Innovator Award recipient at RailTrends, describing him as exemplifying the CN Diaspora of operationally disciplined leaders who have transformed freight rail performance across multiple networks.

Union Pacific's capital investment programme under his leadership, which includes significant track construction and infrastructure renewal, reflects a philosophy that operational excellence and infrastructure investment are inseparable. Vena's public communications on the relationship between network precision, capital allocation, and long-term rail infrastructure performance are among the clearest available from an active freight railroad CEO.

14. Jennifer Hamann | Union Pacific

Jennifer Hamann serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Union Pacific, and has been consistently recognised as one of the most influential women in North American freight rail. Her perspective on the financial architecture of major rail infrastructure investment, the relationship between capital allocation and network performance, and the long-term economics of rail construction is among the most rigorous available from an active practitioner at the intersection of finance and infrastructure.

Hamann was a featured speaker at Women in Rail 2025 and her work on the financial frameworks that support sustainable rail infrastructure investment is widely respected across the industry. Her understanding of how large-scale rail construction programmes are financed and governed from a shareholder perspective provides a valuable counterpoint to the engineering and operations voices that dominate most rail construction discourse.

15. Brian Cornick | Cando Rail and Terminals

Brian Cornick has led Cando Rail and Terminals since 2015, building it into one of Canada's most recognised and awarded rail services businesses through a combination of safety culture leadership, strategic acquisitions, and a relentless focus on first and last mile rail service. Under his direction, Cando has maintained its standing as one of Canada's Best Managed Companies for nine consecutive years and has grown to encompass 80 first and last mile rail service operations, 36 owned rail terminals, and three short lines.

Cornick was named one of Railway Age's Top 15 Most Influential Industry Leaders for 2026, reflecting the recognition his approach to building a safety-first culture alongside aggressive commercial growth has earned across the industry. His career began with 13 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and his transition from military to commercial rail leadership has informed a distinctive approach to organisational discipline and workforce accountability that many rail construction and services businesses have sought to learn from.

Category 3: Construction Industry Voices Shaping Rail

Some of the most important thought leadership on rail construction comes not from rail specialists but from construction industry practitioners and communicators whose deep understanding of project delivery, lean methodology, and workforce culture applies powerfully to the unique challenges of rail infrastructure.

16. Fred Mills | The B1M

Fred Mills founded The B1M as a mission to give construction's extraordinary stories the exposure they deserve, and in doing so has built the world's largest video channel for construction with more than four million YouTube subscribers and 32 million monthly views. His content regularly covers major rail infrastructure projects including HS2, Crossrail's Elizabeth Line, the Mont Cenis Base Tunnel connecting France and Italy, and Australia's Inland Rail programme, giving millions of viewers access to the real stories of the people building these projects.

YouTube named The B1M a Creator on the Rise, and it holds the first Silver and Gold Creator Awards for any built environment channel. Mills's work has fundamentally shifted how rail construction is understood by the public and by younger professionals considering careers in infrastructure. His ability to explain the scale and human complexity of major rail projects to an audience that has no engineering background is a genuinely rare and valuable form of thought leadership.

17. Aaron Witt | BuildWitt

Aaron Witt founded BuildWitt with a mission to change how the heavy civil construction industry is perceived and how it attracts talent, and his content has become one of the most widely followed voices in construction globally. His focus on the people who do the work, the field crews, the operators, the supervisors, and the real leadership lessons that come from building things connects directly with the workforce challenges that rail construction faces globally.

Rail construction's persistent skills shortage is fundamentally a talent attraction and retention problem, and Witt's work on building industry pride and professional identity is among the most important contributions available to those trying to address it. His willingness to show the reality of heavy civil construction, including its physical demands and emotional rewards, is gradually reshaping how younger workers think about careers in infrastructure.

18. Jason Schroeder | Elevate Construction

Jason Schroeder is the founder and COO of Elevate Construction and the author of Elevating Construction Superintendents, which has become a widely used resource for frontline construction leaders. His focus on lean principles, team culture, and empowering crews at the supervision level is particularly relevant for rail construction, where the performance of construction superintendents on track laying, civils works, and systems installation programmes is a critical determinant of project outcomes.

Schroeder's content bridges the gap between academic lean methodology and the practical reality of running a construction crew on a live railway environment, and his LinkedIn presence reflects a genuine commitment to building a community of practice around field leadership excellence. Elevating Construction Superintendents is now used as a course text at Arizona State University for construction project leaders, reflecting the breadth of influence his work on superintendent leadership has achieved.

19. Felipe Engineer-Manriquez | The EBFC Show

Felipe Engineer-Manriquez is one of the most consistently insightful voices in lean construction globally, with a podcast, online community, and speaking practice that has made lean principles accessible to construction practitioners in a way that academic literature rarely achieves. His work on continuous improvement, flow efficiency, and cultural transformation inside construction organisations applies with particular force to rail construction programmes, where the sequencing of work in constrained corridor environments demands exactly the kind of systematic waste elimination that lean methodology provides.

Engineer-Manriquez brings a credibility grounded in real project delivery to every insight he shares, and his LinkedIn community around lean construction practice in the field is one of the most genuinely engaged professional communities in the construction industry globally.

20. Nathan Wood | Construction Progress Coalition

Nathan Wood serves as Executive Director of the Construction Progress Coalition and is one of the most active advocates for digital collaboration, open standards, and smarter project delivery in construction. His work on interoperability between construction project management systems, the standardisation of data exchange, and the building of digital workflows that give programme leaders real-time visibility into project performance has direct relevance for the complex programme environments that characterise major rail construction.

Wood's posts challenge traditional construction workflows and advocate consistently for a more connected, data-driven future for the industry, making him one of the most practically forward-thinking voices in the space. His work on the Construction Progress Coalition's advocacy for open data standards in the construction industry is the kind of infrastructure-building for knowledge that major rail programmes need to adopt at scale.

21. Ashley Wieland | National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association

Ashley Wieland serves as President of the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association, the trade association that represents the companies and individuals who physically build and maintain North American railroads. Her role gives her a perspective on rail construction that is grounded in the day-to-day realities of track construction, bridge renewal, and maintenance-of-way operations that the executive voices at major railroads do not always have direct access to.

Wieland has been a featured participant at RailTrends and is a consistent advocate for the construction and maintenance sector's role in the overall safety and performance of the North American rail network. Her work at NRC includes advocating for workforce development investment, safety standards in railroad construction, and the regulatory and commercial conditions that allow construction firms to invest in capability and capacity.

22. Lisa Tackach | Railroad Construction Company Inc.

Lisa Tackach is Head of Marketing at Railroad Construction Company Inc. and serves as President of the League of Railway Women, one of the most active professional communities supporting women in rail in North America. Her dual role gives her a distinctive perspective on both the commercial realities of railroad construction contracting and the diversity and workforce development challenges that the industry faces at every level.

As a moderator and speaker at Women in Rail 2025, she was one of the most visible advocates for the argument that building a more diverse construction workforce and building a more capable construction industry are the same objective. Her work at the intersection of construction marketing, workforce development, and professional community building makes her a genuinely multidimensional voice in the rail construction space.

Category 4: Women Shaping Rail Construction's Future

23. Kari Gonzales | MxV Rail

Kari Gonzales is President and CEO of MxV Rail, a research and technology organisation focused on advancing rail safety, efficiency, and sustainability, and was named the League of Railway Women's Railway Woman of the Year in 2023. Her leadership of one of the rail industry's most important applied research organisations, and her track record of building commercially viable partnerships between railroad operators and technology developers, makes her one of the most consequential women in North American rail.

Her career arc from mechanical engineer and senior technical roles through to the presidency of a major rail research body reflects the breadth of perspective that the most effective rail industry leaders bring to the complex challenges of building safer, more efficient infrastructure. MxV Rail's research programmes, including applied testing, standards development, and the 31st Annual AAR Research Review, are directly shaping the technical decisions that determine how rail infrastructure is built and maintained across North America.

24. Jean Savage | Trinity Industries

Jean Savage is CEO and President of Trinity Industries, one of North America's largest manufacturers of rail products including freight cars, tank cars, and highway products. Her leadership of a major rail supply chain business, and her consistent public voice on the relationship between manufacturing excellence, supply chain resilience, and the safe performance of rail infrastructure, makes her an essential voice in the ecosystem that surrounds rail construction.

Savage was a featured speaker at Women in Rail 2025, and her perspective on how rail industry suppliers contribute to the overall safety and performance of rail networks extends the conversation about thought leadership in rail construction beyond the projects themselves to the supply chains that make them possible. Trinity Industries' products are present on virtually every freight railroad in North America, and Savage's perspective on manufacturing quality as an infrastructure safety issue is one that more rail construction voices need to hear.

25. Henrika Buchanan | HNTB

Henrika Buchanan serves as Senior Vice President and National Practice Consultant for Transit and Rail at HNTB, one of the leading infrastructure advisory and engineering firms in the United States. Her work spans the full spectrum of rail planning from initial feasibility and environmental assessment through detailed engineering and construction management, and her perspective on how rail projects succeed or fail in their early phases, before a shovel hits the ground, is among the most practically useful available.

Buchanan has been a featured speaker at Women in Rail 2025 and is widely recognised as a mentor and advocate for the next generation of women entering rail infrastructure careers. Her understanding of how major transit and rail construction programmes are planned and funded in the United States, and her ability to navigate the complex intergovernmental relationships involved in major rail projects, gives her insights particular depth.

26. Kimia Khatami | CPKC

Kimia Khatami is one of the most recognised emerging leaders in North American rail, named to Railway Age's 25 Fast Trackers Under 40 in 2025 after a career trajectory that includes becoming the youngest leader in the history of the Harbor Association of Industry and Commerce at the age of 27. At Canadian Pacific Kansas City, she leads a team responsible for sourcing investment opportunities, improving network fluidity, and delivering projects that grow linehaul traffic across the CPKC network.

Her work at the intersection of commercial strategy and infrastructure investment, and her consistent advocacy for women in rail, makes her a valuable and genuinely distinctive voice in the industry. Her experience bridging customer-facing commercial roles with capital programme delivery gives her a perspective on how rail infrastructure investment creates commercial value that is less common among traditional engineering-focused rail voices.

27. Lariza Stewart | KCI Technologies

Lariza Stewart serves as Senior Project Manager for Rail at KCI Technologies and chairs AREMA Committee 2, one of the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association's key technical committees. Her combination of active project management, technical committee leadership, and involvement in Women in Rail programming reflects the kind of multidimensional contribution to the rail construction profession that often goes unrecognised in favour of more senior titles.

Stewart's work on grade crossing safety enhancement and intersection design for rail environments is directly connected to the construction challenges that communities face when new rail projects intersect with existing road networks. Her participation at Women in Rail 2025 and her AREMA committee leadership reflect a commitment to building the professional infrastructure of the rail construction industry alongside the physical infrastructure.

28. Brett Guarino | CSX

Brett Guarino is a Project Manager in CSX's Construction Engineering division and was recognised as one of RT&S's 2025 Women in Railroad Engineering, one of the most competitive recognition programmes in North American rail engineering. Her work at the intersection of construction management, environmental stewardship, and rail infrastructure delivery reflects the next generation of construction engineers who approach rail projects with an integrated understanding of technical delivery, environmental responsibility, and community engagement.

Her participation at Women in Rail 2025 as part of the Trackside Impact panel, addressing how railroad construction projects can positively affect communities and environments, underscored her commitment to sharing the lessons of her construction experience with the broader community. Her focus on the environmental dimensions of railroad construction is an increasingly important voice as the industry grapples with how to deliver major infrastructure with lower carbon footprints.

29. Azza Alsuwaidi | Etihad Rail

Azza Alsuwaidi serves as Deputy CEO of Etihad Rail, the authority responsible for delivering the UAE's national railway network, one of the most ambitious infrastructure programmes in the Middle East. The Etihad Rail project is connecting the UAE's cities and ports with a freight and passenger network that involves significant civil engineering, tunnelling, and bridge construction across challenging desert terrain.

Alsuwaidi's leadership role in one of the region's most visible infrastructure programmes, and her participation in the Oliver Wyman Global Rail Transport and Infrastructure conference in 2025, reflects both her personal influence and the broader importance of Gulf rail construction programmes to the global conversation about rail infrastructure delivery. The Etihad Rail programme's success in delivering complex rail construction in an extreme climate environment is producing insights that are relevant to practitioners facing climate resilience challenges in other contexts.

Category 5: Rail Policy, Safety, and Standards Leaders

The regulatory, standards, and policy environment shapes what rail construction can achieve. These leaders are defining the frameworks within which rail infrastructure is built, operated, and governed.

30. Darren Caplan | Railway Industry Association

Darren Caplan is Chief Executive of the Railway Industry Association, the UK's principal trade body representing suppliers to the rail industry, and one of the most consistently active public voices on UK rail policy, investment, and the economic case for rail construction. His work on making the case for sustained rail infrastructure investment to government and public audiences, and his regular commentary on the challenges facing major rail programmes, makes him one of the most important advocacy voices in UK rail.

Caplan posts regularly on LinkedIn and writes for multiple rail industry publications, and his engagement with the full breadth of UK rail policy issues gives his commentary unusual range. His October 2025 warning that rail industry reforms must not delay critical infrastructure projects, and his research-backed advocacy that rail passenger numbers could increase by up to 97 percent by 2050 with appropriate investment, represent the kind of evidence-based public leadership that rail construction needs more of.

31. Karen Philbrick | Mineta Transportation Institute

Karen Philbrick is Executive Director of the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University, one of the United States' leading university-based transportation policy and research organisations. Her work on transportation policy, rail project delivery, and the evidence base for infrastructure investment decisions positions her at the intersection of academic research and practical policy development.

Philbrick was featured at Women in Rail 2025 and her institute's research on transit and rail project delivery, financing models, and community benefit assessment is regularly cited by policymakers and practitioners working on major rail construction programmes across North America. The Mineta Transportation Institute's work on the socioeconomic impacts of rail investment provides the kind of independent analytical foundation that major rail construction programmes increasingly need to justify their cost.

32. Tony Hatch | ABH Consulting

Tony Hatch is the most quoted independent analyst in North American freight rail and the co-founder of RailTrends, widely described as the "Woodstock of Railroading" and the most substantive annual intelligence summit in the rail industry. For more than 30 years, beginning at Salomon Brothers and continuing through PaineWebber, NatWest Markets, and his independent practice ABH Consulting, Hatch has produced the financial and strategic analysis that shapes how investors, operators, and policymakers understand the long-term economics of freight rail infrastructure.

His testimony before Congress on railroad policy, his monthly analysis published through Progressive Railroading, and his role at RailTrends as the intellectual organiser of the industry's most important annual conversation make him an indispensable voice for understanding how capital flows into and out of rail infrastructure. He was named the 2019 North American Rail Shippers Association Person of the Year, and his 2025 analysis of the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger is widely regarded as the most comprehensive independent assessment available.

33. John Gray | Association of American Railroads

John Gray serves as President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads, the principal industry association and research organisation for the North American freight railroad industry. His role as the industry's primary public voice on safety, technology investment, regulatory policy, and the economic case for freight rail infrastructure makes him one of the most consequential figures in shaping the environment within which rail construction decisions are made.

The AAR under Gray's leadership has been an active voice on the connection between rail infrastructure investment and supply chain resilience, and on the technology investments that are transforming how American freight railroads are built and operated. His work on the industry's response to tariffs, USMCA renegotiation, and the proposed Class I merger landscape reflects the breadth of policy dimensions that now surround major rail infrastructure investment decisions.

34. Chuck Baker | American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association

Chuck Baker is President of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, the trade body representing more than 600 short line and regional railroads in the United States. Short line railroads own and operate a significant proportion of the total US rail network and are often responsible for the first and last mile connections that make larger freight rail investments economically viable.

Baker is a consistent voice on the capital needs of short line railroad infrastructure, the regulatory frameworks that affect construction and maintenance investment, and the workforce challenges facing smaller railroad operators. His presence at RailTrends and other major industry forums reflects the growing recognition that short line voices are essential to a complete understanding of rail construction economics and that the health of the broader rail network depends on investment flowing to the short line tier as much as to the Class I corridors.

35. Marc Brazeau | Railway Association of Canada

Marc Brazeau serves as President and CEO of the Railway Association of Canada, the principal industry body for the Canadian freight and passenger rail industry. His work on the advocacy and policy dimensions of rail infrastructure investment, and his regular presence at North American rail industry forums including RailTrends, reflects the deep interconnectedness of Canadian and American rail construction and operations.

Brazeau's perspective on how the CPKC network's development, the growth of short line infrastructure investment, and the regulatory environment for rail in Canada are shaping the country's infrastructure future is a valuable complement to the American-centric perspectives that often dominate the North American rail conversation. His advocacy on USMCA trade provisions, rail safety regulation, and the environmental case for freight rail is consistent and evidence-based.

Category 6: Digital Transformation and Innovation in Rail Construction

The future of rail construction will be shaped as much by digital tools as by physical engineering. These leaders are building the technology infrastructure, the digital methodologies, and the innovation cultures that are beginning to transform how rail is designed, built, and maintained.

36. Craig Evans | Rail Delivery Group

Craig Evans serves as Operations Lead for New Technology Introduction at the Rail Delivery Group in the United Kingdom and plays a central role in the national rollout of digital rail technologies including ERTMS, the European Rail Traffic Management System. With extensive experience in both freight and passenger rail operations, he brings a systems-level perspective to the challenge of integrating new digital infrastructure into existing railway environments.

Evans was a featured speaker at Technology in Rail 2025, and his work on navigating the operational complexity of introducing digital signalling and communications systems on active networks is directly relevant to the construction challenges involved in major rail technology upgrades. The national rollout of ERTMS represents one of the most significant digital construction programmes in UK rail history, and Evans's role in managing its introduction gives his perspective particular currency.

37. Nigel Harris | Rail Professional Magazine

Nigel Harris is Editor of Rail Professional Magazine, one of the UK's most respected rail industry publications, and has been covering rail construction, operations, policy, and technology for more than three decades. His consistent and independent commentary on the challenges and opportunities facing the UK rail construction sector, and his willingness to address the difficult questions around project governance, cost management, and industry reform, make him one of the most trusted editorial voices in the space.

Harris's access to senior figures across the UK rail industry and his ability to translate complex technical and commercial issues into accessible analysis gives his work an outsised influence on how the industry understands itself. For rail professionals outside the UK who want to understand the lessons from Britain's major rail construction programmes, Harris's editorial perspective is an essential starting point.

38. Francesca Pagliara | University of Naples Federico II

Francesca Pagliara is a professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II, and one of Europe's leading researchers on the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of high-speed rail infrastructure. She edited the 2025 Springer volume Socioeconomic Impacts of High-Speed Rail Systems, bringing together current research on how high-speed rail construction changes regional economies, travel patterns, and environmental outcomes.

Her work provides the evidence base that policymakers and practitioners use to justify high-speed rail investment decisions, and her research on climate resilience in rail infrastructure design is increasingly relevant as rail construction programmes grapple with designing for extreme weather events. The University of Naples Federico II hosted the International Workshop on High-Speed Rail in 2023, and Pagliara's editorial role in the resulting 2025 proceedings reflects her position at the centre of European high-speed rail research.

39. Roger Harris | Amtrak

Roger Harris has served as President of Amtrak since June 2023, leading the day-to-day operations of the United States' national passenger rail system through one of the most significant infrastructure investment periods in its history. Under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Amtrak has received historic levels of capital funding that Harris has been responsible for translating into actual construction programmes on the Northeast Corridor, long-distance routes, and state-supported services across the country.

His leadership of Amtrak's operational and commercial functions during a period of major capital programme delivery, combined with the political complexity of managing a nationally significant public transit system under changing administrations, reflects the full range of challenges that rail construction leadership faces in a democratic political environment. Harris's experience connecting Amtrak's operational excellence goals with its infrastructure investment programme is a model for how passenger rail organisations can align capital delivery with service improvement.

40. Inmaculada Guitierrez | Renfe International

Inmaculada Gutierrez serves as CEO of Renfe's international projects division, responsible for extending Spain's world-class high-speed rail expertise to rail development programmes in markets outside Europe. Spain has built one of the world's most extensive high-speed rail networks, with more than 4,000 kilometres of track, and the knowledge accumulated in designing, building, and operating that network represents some of the most valuable intellectual capital available to countries now planning their own high-speed rail construction programmes.

Gutierrez's role in transferring that knowledge internationally, and her participation in the Oliver Wyman Global Rail conference in 2025, reflects both her personal expertise and the global relevance of the Spanish high-speed rail model. Her perspective on how to build international rail construction partnerships that successfully transfer technical capability alongside physical infrastructure is particularly valuable for emerging rail markets seeking to accelerate their development.

41. Sanjeev Gupta | Tata Consulting Engineers

Sanjeev Gupta serves as Associated Vice President and Group Sector Head for Transportation at Tata Consulting Engineers in India, and has been a featured voice at the Institution of Civil Engineers' Future of Rail conferences on how sustainable rail infrastructure is being designed and delivered in the South Asian context. India is currently executing what is arguably the world's most ambitious rail construction programme, with dozens of metro, rapid transit, and intercity rail projects underway simultaneously alongside the flagship high-speed rail programme.

Gupta's perspective on how large-scale engineering consultancies manage the technical and organisational complexity of delivering multiple major rail projects in parallel is directly relevant to practitioners in other high-growth rail construction markets. His work at the intersection of engineering consulting, infrastructure sustainability, and large programme management in one of the world's most demanding construction environments represents a form of thought leadership that English-speaking practitioners do not access frequently enough.

Category 7: Workforce, Safety, and Construction Culture

The people who physically build rail infrastructure are the most important variable in whether major rail construction programmes succeed or fail. These leaders are shaping the workforce cultures, safety frameworks, and professional communities that determine whether the people doing the work are equipped, protected, and motivated.

42. Heather McKinnon | Watco

Heather McKinnon joined Watco in January 2025 after a 15-year career as a civil design engineer and project manager in transportation infrastructure in Alberta, Canada. In under a year at Watco she assumed programme management responsibility for a 170 million dollar rail expansion project across two brownfield industrial sites in Alberta, constructing 80,000 feet of track and associated rail car wash infrastructure. Her trajectory, from civil engineer through project engineering to programme management leadership on a major rail construction programme, reflects the career path that the rail construction industry needs to see more frequently.

McKinnon's willingness to engage publicly with the challenges of managing complex rail construction in active industrial environments makes her a genuinely useful voice for practitioners navigating the specific difficulties of rail construction on operating industrial sites. She was recognised in RT&S's Engineers Under 40 for 2026 as one of the most promising emerging leaders in North American rail construction.

43. Michelle Sabers | Zephyr Rail

Michelle Sabers is a structural engineer specialising in rail infrastructure and was named in RT&S's Engineers Under 40 for 2026 as one of the most promising emerging leaders in North American rail engineering. Her work spans vehicle dynamic studies, wheel-rail interaction research, and the development of standards for passenger vehicle qualification testing at the research level, alongside practical infrastructure engineering work on grade crossing safety enhancement and intersection design projects.

She also serves as Treasurer for ASCE's Orange County Younger Member Forum and has demonstrated a consistent commitment to community engagement alongside her technical work, including leading Zephyr Rail's involvement in the Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child programme. Sabers's career reflects the kind of multidisciplinary, standards-engaged, community-invested engineering leadership that the rail construction industry needs to attract and develop at scale.

44. Trafikverket Programme Leadership | Sweden

Trafikverket, the Swedish Transport Administration, is responsible for the planning and delivery of rail infrastructure across Sweden, including a major programme of high-speed rail and conventional rail construction that is among the most ambitious in Scandinavia. The organisation's integrated approach to rail infrastructure planning, environmental sustainability, and community engagement reflects the Nordic model of infrastructure governance that has produced some of the world's most effectively delivered public rail projects.

Sweden's approach to combining long-term infrastructure planning with genuine sustainability integration and community engagement is generating insights that are highly relevant to rail construction programmes in other jurisdictions seeking to improve their social licence to operate. The Trafikverket model of infrastructure governance, including its approach to early contractor involvement, climate risk integration, and workforce diversity, is one of the most studied in European rail construction circles.

45. Zara Barnes | RSSB

Zara Barnes is a director at RSSB, the Rail Safety and Standards Board in the United Kingdom, which is responsible for producing the standards, research, and guidance that underpin how safety is managed across the UK rail network. RSSB's work on safety management systems, risk-based decision-making, and the interface between construction and operational safety is essential reading for anyone leading rail construction in a regulated environment.

Barnes's leadership within the organisation on the standards and frameworks that govern how construction works are managed safely on and near the operational railway represents a dimension of rail construction thought leadership that is rarely visible outside specialist circles but is fundamental to how rail construction programmes actually work. The RSSB's research on the specific safety challenges of construction on live railways is among the most practically valuable available to programme safety leaders.

46. Phillip Eng | MBTA and MassDOT

Phillip Eng serves as both Interim Secretary of Transportation for Massachusetts and General Manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, having been appointed to the dual role in October 2025. In his time leading the MBTA since 2023, he has overseen a transformative period that included eliminating all subway speed restrictions for the first time in more than 20 years, opening South Coast Rail to deliver passenger rail service to Southeastern Massachusetts for the first time in 65 years, and delivering new modern Orange and Red Line cars.

Eng was recognised as one of Railway Age's Most Influential Industry Leaders in 2025, reflecting both his personal leadership and the scale of the construction and renewal programme he has overseen. His approach to connecting transparent public communication with rigorous programme delivery, and his career spanning New York State DOT, NYC Transit, and the Long Island Rail Road before his MBTA appointment, gives him one of the broadest operational and construction management backgrounds of any current transit executive in North America.

47. David Clark | CSX

David Clark serves as Director of Construction Engineering at CSX and holds the position of Senior Vice President of AREMA for 2025 to 2026, one of the most significant leadership roles in the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association. His combined role as an active practitioner managing construction engineering programmes on one of North America's major freight railroads and as a senior leader in the principal professional body for railway engineering practitioners gives him a distinctive dual perspective on the field.

Clark is a member of the RT&S Editorial Board and recently co-presented a virtual conference on ballast maintenance practice, reflecting his commitment to sharing technical construction knowledge across the professional community. His focus on the practical engineering challenges of railroad track construction, grade crossing management, and ballast performance on active freight corridors represents the kind of field-level expertise that major rail construction programmes need embedded in their technical leadership.

48. Jean Savage | Trinity Industries

Jean Savage's leadership at Trinity Industries connects the manufacturing and supply chain dimensions of rail construction to the broader question of how rail infrastructure performs over its operational life. Her work on sustainable manufacturing practices in rail product supply chains, and her advocacy for the view that the long-term performance of rail infrastructure is determined as much by the quality of components manufactured for it as by how it is built, is increasingly relevant as rail construction programmes grapple with whole-life cost and sustainability outcomes.

Trinity Industries' products underpin the performance of virtually every freight car on North American railroads, and Savage's perspective on the intersection of manufacturing quality, safety, and rail network resilience adds an important dimension to the rail construction conversation that infrastructure-focused voices alone cannot provide. For more on building high-performing leadership teams that deliver complex infrastructure, see my blog post '35 Influential Homebuilding Thought Leaders (2026)' at consultclarity.org/post/homebuilding-thought-leaders.

49. Kimia Khatami | CPKC

Note: Kimia Khatami is featured in Category 4 above. As one of the most active emerging voices connecting commercial strategy to rail infrastructure investment, her work deserves additional recognition in the context of workforce and culture. Her trajectory from marketing at Union Pacific through commercial leadership roles at Anacostia Rail Holdings to her current role at CPKC reflects the kind of career-spanning, cross-functional leadership development that the rail industry needs to see more of, particularly among women building careers in a traditionally male-dominated field.

Her appointment as youngest leader in the Harbor Association of Industry and Commerce's history, and her subsequent recognition as one of Railway Age's 25 Fast Trackers Under 40 in 2025, demonstrate that the rail industry is beginning to develop a generation of leaders who combine commercial acumen, operational understanding, and a genuine commitment to diversity and inclusion in ways that the previous generation of leadership often did not.

50. Jonno White | Clarity Group Global

The people on this list are the thinkers and builders who are shaping the future of rail construction globally. Jonno White is the person you bring in when you are ready to act on what they say, helping the leadership teams inside rail construction programmes build the communication, accountability, and alignment frameworks that translate great ideas into great delivery.

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with over 10,000 copies sold globally, and host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast with 230 plus episodes reaching listeners in 150 plus countries. He founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000 plus participating leaders and achieved a 93.75 percent satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. He works with leadership teams inside major infrastructure organisations, government agencies, and project delivery teams to build the cultures that make complex programmes actually work.

To book Jonno White for your next leadership workshop, executive offsite, or keynote, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several people were seriously considered for this list but did not make the final 50. Andrew Haines, the Chief Executive of Network Rail, has an enormously influential role in UK rail infrastructure but his LinkedIn activity has been limited during the period reviewed. Mark Thurston, the previous CEO of HS2, made extraordinary contributions to the early delivery phases of that programme but has been less publicly active since stepping down. Adriene Bailey of Oliver Wyman is among the most rigorous independent analysts working on the future of North American freight rail and came very close to inclusion.

Doanh Do of the Lean Construction Blog brings some of the most practically grounded lean methodology expertise available in construction globally, and his work specifically on Target Value Delivery across large construction programmes is directly relevant to rail. In the interest of surfacing voices the reader may not yet have encountered, this list deliberately moved past several household names in the infrastructure policy space to prioritise practitioners and programme leaders whose day-to-day work is directly shaping how rail is being built.

Common Mistakes in Engaging with Rail Construction Thought Leadership

The first mistake is treating rail construction as a monolith. Freight rail construction, passenger rail construction, high-speed rail, urban transit, and heritage rail involve different engineering challenges, different procurement models, different regulatory environments, and different workforce cultures. The thought leaders who are most relevant to your specific context are not necessarily the most famous voices in the broader industry. Taking the time to identify which subdiscipline is most relevant to your work before building a reading and following list will pay significant dividends.

The second mistake is focusing exclusively on technical content while ignoring leadership and culture. The evidence from major rail construction failures globally, including HS2's governance review, the history of Crossrail, and the ongoing challenges with California's high-speed rail programme, consistently points to organisational and leadership failures rather than technical failures as the primary cause of cost overruns and schedule delays. The thought leaders who are writing about how rail construction organisations are led, how decisions are made, and how workforce cultures are built are addressing the most consequential problems in the field.

The third mistake is reading and following without engaging. The thought leaders on this list are not broadcasters. Most of them are practitioners who welcome genuine questions from other practitioners. LinkedIn is one of the most useful forums for that engagement, and the habit of leaving substantive comments that advance the conversation rather than simply affirming what was said is one of the most effective ways to build the kind of professional relationships that produce real learning.

The fourth mistake is ignoring the international dimension. Rail construction expertise does not respect national borders. Some of the most important insights into how major rail projects should be delivered are currently being generated in Spain, Sweden, Japan, and India, and the thought leaders in those environments are often producing work that is directly relevant to practitioners in North America and the UK who are not following them.

The fifth mistake is confusing visibility with credibility. The most visible voices in any industry are not always the most useful ones. Several of the people on this list have relatively modest social media followings compared to their genuine influence on how their field thinks about its hardest problems. Building a following and reading list that prioritises proven depth of insight over follower count will produce better returns on the time invested.

Implementation Guide: Building Your Rail Construction Knowledge Network

The first step is to identify which two or three categories from this list are most relevant to your current role and the specific challenges you are working on. If you are managing a major programme, the megaproject delivery voices are your priority. If you are working on workforce culture and safety, the workforce and safety category leaders are where to start. If you are thinking about the longer-term direction of rail construction technology, the digital transformation voices deserve your attention.

The second step is to follow the relevant people on LinkedIn and turn on notifications for their posts. Within the first month, make a commitment to engaging substantively with at least two posts per week from people on this list. Substantive engagement means adding a perspective, sharing a relevant experience, or asking a genuine question, not simply clicking the like button.

The third step is to read beyond the posts to the underlying research, publications, and long-form work that inform the most substantive thought leaders' perspectives. Several people on this list are associated with research institutions, industry publications, or books that contain significantly more depth than any social media post can convey. The work of Francesca Pagliara on high-speed rail socioeconomic impacts, the RailTrends annual conference proceedings, and the RT&S and Railway Age archives all reward deeper engagement.

The fourth step is to bring ideas into your organisation. The most valuable thought leadership in any field is the kind that changes how you and your team approach problems. Build a habit of sharing one insight per week in a team meeting or internal communication that connects something you have read or heard from the people on this list to a specific challenge your team is currently facing.

The fifth step is to contribute as well as consume. If you have genuine expertise in any dimension of rail construction or rail infrastructure, you have something worth sharing publicly. Your experience on a current programme, your perspective on a policy challenge, or your observations on how technology is or is not working in practice are all genuinely valuable to other practitioners. Jonno White works with leadership teams inside major infrastructure programmes to build the communication, accountability, and team alignment frameworks that translate thought leadership into real programme outcomes. To discuss how he can support your leadership team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes someone a thought leader in rail construction rather than simply a rail industry executive?

The distinction is in whether a person is generating original ideas, frameworks, or perspectives that change how others in the field think about problems, rather than simply executing within existing frameworks. A thought leader in rail construction is someone whose work, whether through research, writing, speaking, advocacy, or direct programme delivery with accompanying public reflection, is advancing the collective understanding of how rail infrastructure is best designed, built, governed, or maintained. Senior executives become thought leaders when they are willing to share the genuine insights from their experience, including the failures, in ways that are useful to others.

How was this list compiled?

This list was developed through extensive research across industry publications including Railway Age, RT&S, Rail Professional, and Rail Business Daily, conference programmes including RailTrends, Women in Rail, Technology in Rail, and the Oliver Wyman Global Rail conferences, and deliberate searches for voices from programme delivery, civil engineering, workforce development, safety leadership, and digital transformation. Selection criteria prioritised geographic and gender diversity, with representation sought from North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The list deliberately includes both well-established names and emerging voices the reader may not yet have encountered.

Are there important rail construction thought leaders outside English-speaking markets?

Absolutely, and this is one of the most significant gaps in how the global rail construction community shares knowledge. Japan's Shinkansen builders, China's high-speed rail programme managers, and the engineers behind India's metro and rapid transit expansion have generated extraordinary operational and construction knowledge that is often not accessible to English-speaking practitioners. Germany's Deutsche Bahn Bahnbau Gruppe, Spain's Renfe railway engineering organisations, and Sweden's Trafikverket all represent traditions of rail construction excellence that the English-speaking world would benefit from engaging with more seriously.

What are the most important annual events for connecting with thought leaders in rail construction?

RailTrends in New York is the most substantive annual forum for North American freight rail thinking. The Women in Rail Conference co-hosted by Railway Age and RT&S is the most important annual gathering for diversity and workforce leadership in rail. Technology in Rail in the UK is the most focused event on digital transformation in rail infrastructure. The Oliver Wyman Global Rail Transport and Infrastructure Exhibition and Conference provides the most global perspective. For civil engineering and construction specifically, the Institution of Civil Engineers' rail infrastructure events and the AREMA Annual Conference are essential.

Can I hire someone to help my rail construction leadership team work better together?

Yes. Jonno White, a Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with over 10,000 copies sold globally, works with leadership teams inside major infrastructure programmes to build the communication frameworks, accountability structures, and team alignment that make the difference between programmes that deliver and programmes that struggle. He delivers Working Genius facilitation, DISC communication workshops, leadership offsites, and keynote presentations for engineering and infrastructure organisations globally. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss your team's specific needs.

Final Thoughts

Rail construction is one of the few industries that can genuinely reshape how cities function, how freight moves, and how quickly a country can decarbonise its transport system. The people on this list are not passive observers of that reshaping. They are the active agents of it, making decisions every day that will determine whether the extraordinary investment flowing into rail infrastructure globally produces the outcomes it promises or adds to the long list of megaproject cautionary tales.

Following their thinking, engaging with their ideas, and applying the best of what they know to your own work is one of the most productive investments of professional time available to anyone working in or around rail construction today. The field is changing rapidly, the stakes are high, and the people who are thinking most clearly about how to get this right deserve a wide and engaged audience.

For more on leadership and team dynamics in construction and infrastructure, see my blog post '35 Influential Homebuilding Thought Leaders (2026)' at consultclarity.org/post/homebuilding-thought-leaders.

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, keynote speaker, and leadership consultant who works with infrastructure organisations and project delivery teams globally to build the cultures that make complex programmes actually work. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230 plus episodes reaching listeners in 150 plus countries. To book Jonno for a keynote, workshop, or executive offsite for your leadership team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits across the UK, India, Australia, Canada, Mongolia, New Zealand, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, USA, Finland, Namibia, and more. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230 plus episodes reaching listeners in 150 plus countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000 plus participating leaders and achieved a 93.75 percent satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read: 35 Influential Homebuilding Thought Leaders (2026)

The global housing crisis is not a supply problem. It is a leadership problem dressed up as a supply problem. Somewhere in the gap between what the homebuilding industry currently produces and what the world urgently needs, there are people asking harder questions than most. They are asking why homes still cost so much to build when they have for thirty years. They are asking why the skilled trades workforce is shrinking at exactly the moment it needs to grow. They are asking why so many of the answers that seem obvious from the outside remain stubbornly out of reach inside the organisations responsible for delivering them.

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/homebuilding-thought-leaders