Digital Construction Power Players 2025: part 3

Two years ago, Zero launched its first net-zero construction playbook, and following significant growth in its global reach, it is preparing to stage its first Zerocon in Manchester in October.

What marked Zero out at its inception and remains the case today is the honesty of its founders and members: there was no greenwash, but there was an almost disarmingly honest appraisal of how little most construction professionals knew about the problem and how to address it. Zero is taking its members on a journey to a better-informed state, but always with a focus on taking action rather than becoming a talking shop.

Part of the first wave championing BIM, David Philp had to be on this list. He held BIM roles at Balfour Beatty, Mace and Aecom, before his move to Bentley Systems. More pertinently to this list, he was head of BIM at the UK BIM Task Group and impact director at the Construction Innovation Hub. Currently, he chairs the Chartered Institute of Building’s digital and innovation advisory panel, where he co-authored the AI Playbook (published last year).

Philp has a thirst for knowledge and a keenness to be ahead of the curve. He’s been leading the construction industry’s charge to understand the mechanics and value of AI and the risks associated with it.

Philp is part of the fabric of digital construction: barely an event happens in the digital construction space without him being involved in some capacity, usually chairing debates and panels with clarity of thought.

As with many on the Power Players list, Shana’a wears several hats (Zero co-founder and contributor to the UK BIM Framework guidance, for example), but we’ve listed him for his day job as CEO and co-founder of Morta.

“The flexibility of Excel and Word, with the power of a database,” trumpets Morta’s website. As the brand name suggests, the platform acts like glue, enabling collaboration and interoperability of platforms and data.

Shana’a and Morta embrace their community of users. Everywhere you look, those taking action to improve productivity through digital construction seem to be turning to him and his platform.

At this year’s Digital Construction Awards, Morta’s role is highlighted by shortlisted entries from Mace, RLB Digital and XD House, as well as its own entry with nima, transforming the digestibility of the UK BIM Framework guidance.

Other recent applications using Morta include Digital Guerrilla’s data validation as a service. And stand by for an announcement from a well-known BIM software supplier about its partnership with Morta.

We’ve selected Aman Sharma not for his role as CEO of Totus Digital, but rather for his ongoing role in the golden thread. He was a co-author of the golden thread and the Construction Leadership Council’s golden thread guidance.

In a webinar organised by this writer least year, Sharma was clear and direct about the role of the guidance and the size of the document (90 pages): “The reason it’s comprehensive is that it’s not a document that we are encouraging people to pick up, put down and forget about. We want this to be a reference piece. I hope users of this guidance will be constantly referring to it.

“Candidly, if I can be as blunt as to suggest that I don’t really want anyone picking up this document who is not prepared to understand it in the great depth and detail that it needs, because I’m convinced that its proper application will deliver safe buildings.”

We await the next iteration of the guidance.

In his career, David Shepherd has done a bit of everything: an early stint at Autodesk saw him spend 10 years running software training programmes at various vendors, before joining HOK as BIM manager in 2013 where he was responsible for implementing the BIM strategy across the practice, and then rejoining Autodesk in 2016.

Come the end of 2019, he joined the House of Commons as project BIM leader before taking on his current role in the restoration and renewal of the seat of power.

Shepherd is well-connected and respected. His wider engagement with the BIM and information management community is a reflection not only of his wide experience, but also a sharp and critical intellect and an eye for detail. Indeed, if you’re going to have a debate with him, you’d better have your facts straight and evidence to hand.

Like Su Butcher (see Power Players part 1), he maintains a personal oversight of post-Grenfell progress and the industry’s ethics.

And we’re pretty sure nobody else on the Power Players list shares Shepherd’s claim to fame: being on stage with guitar legend Carlos Santana!

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