JUDGING PANEL

Anthony Smith
Chair of the Judging Panel

Anthony is currently Chair of Independent Rail Retailers and the Heathrow Area Transport Forum. He is also a member of the Affinity Water Independent Consumer Challenge Group.

Formerly Anthony was chief executive of Transport Focus and its predecessor bodies. He also worked at Consumers' Association and Consumers International. Having studied law Anthony is also a qualified solicitor.

Stephen Fidler
Co-Director for Local Transport
Department for Transport

Stephen is Co-Director for Local Transport at the Department for Transport. He leads, with Jessica Matthew, the DfT directorate responsible for policy and funding on local road maintenance, buses, taxis, light rail, inclusive transport, active travel and local authority transport funding and strategy.

Stephen has worked in government on transport issues for over 25 years, including in the then Department for the Environment and the No 10 Policy Unit. Before starting his current role in 2019, Stephen headed DfTs client team for Highways England. He received an OBE for services to transport in 2019, is the UK's First Delegate to the World Road Association (PIARC) and chairs the UK Roads Leadership Group.

Daisy Narayanan MBE
Director of Public Realm
The Crown Estate

Daisy Narayanan is the Director of Public Realm at The Crown Estate.

Prior to this she was Head of Placemaking and Mobility at the City of Edinburgh Council where she led on delivering a city-wide integrated approach to transport and placemaking.

Daisy is on the Board of Architecture & Design Scotland and a member of the Evidence Group for Scotland's Climate Assembly. She was on the Active Travel Task Force set up by the Minister for Transport and the Islands and is a member of the Scottish Transport Awards judging panel. She recently won the Civic Servant of the year award from the Academy of Urbanism.

Drawing on her previous experience working as an architect and urban designer in India, Singapore, England and Scotland, Daisy believes passionately in the importance of creating places for people: places that reflect and complement the communities that live in them.

A music aficionado, a bookworm and a linguist, Daisy spends her time enjoying the Scottish outdoors with her husband and two children.

Jo Field
President of Women in Transport & Chief Executive of JFG Communications

Jo is the President of Women in Transport and Chief Executive of JFG Communications, a consultancy specialising in stakeholder engagement, political communications, diversity and decarbonisation for the transport sector. Named among the 100 most influential women in Westminster and the top ten most inspirational women in public affairs, Jo has almost 20 years of experience in helping companies engage their stakeholders, build advocacy for their plans, and inform and influence public policy.

Before founding JFG Communications, Jo spent almost a decade at Transport for London where she built and led the company's award-winning stakeholder engagement team, building stakeholder support and advocacy for London's transport infrastructure and the funding to deliver it.

Jo is hugely passionate about addressing women's under-representation in the transport sector, is the co-author of Women in Transport's Gender perceptions and experiences working in transport report (published 2021), and led Women in Transport's engagement with parliamentarians to set up the first ever All-Party Parliamentary Group for Women in Transport in 2016.

Caroline Stickland
Chief Executive
Transport for All

As CEO at Transport for All, Caroline works to ensure the organisation is making an impact and delivering on its goals: challenging and removing the barriers to travel that are faced by Deaf, disabled and older people across the UK. Caroline brings her lived experience as a disabled person, and an academic interest in health, impairment, and disability, to her role. Alongside driving forward the organisation's advice, community and policy work, Caroline has led on the development of Transport for All's Access Partner consultancy service – providing disabled led consultancy support to the transport sector and leading a transformation of how disabled people are engaged with by decision makers.

Transport for All is the only disabled-led group striving to increase access to all modes of transport, and streetspace, across the UK. It is a pan-impairment organisation, advocating for every disabled person. Transport for All works with its members to fight for transport access, championing disabled and older people's rights and providing an unrivalled community of support.

Max Sugarman
Chief Executive
ITS (UK)

Max Sugarman is Chief Executive of Intelligent Transport Systems UK, the national voice of the transport technology industry. He has around a decade of experience working in transport, innovation and communications. He has previously worked at the Catapult Network, where he supported the nine Catapult innovation centres on cross-cutting policy issues and political engagement, and as Public Affairs & PR Director at the Railway Industry Association (RIA), the leading UK trade body for rail suppliers, where he led an award-winning communications function.

He has previous experience at the Institution of Civil Engineers, at a corporate communications agency in the City, at London City Hall and at the House of Representatives in the US. He has a diploma in professional PR, is a Chartered PR Practitioner and has been Chair of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Public Affairs Group since 2021. Max is passionate about transport and the role it plays in people's lives, in supporting economic growth and reaching net zero.

Louise Collins
Director
Transport Focus

Since joining the organisation in 2011 she has worked in a variety of areas including getting the best for passengers from rail franchises, helping motorway services operators make improvements for road users and working closely with bus partnerships. Louise is passionate about putting transport users at the heart of decision making.

Transport Focus is the transport watchdog. It monitors and gathers evidence on the experience for all users. It uses this analysis and insight to influence transport operators and policy makers.