Heathrow's Terminal 5

Love or hate Heathrow we can’t ignore it! An economic power house for the UK, 155,000 earn their living from it and 68 million of us pass through it each year. Two decades of the planning, design, construction and opening of Terminal 5 has resulted in a gateway that Heathrow can be proud of.

Faced with the risk of opening a year late, being a billion overspent, since Sir John Egan in the early 1990s, BAA, stakeholders and supplier partners have been grappling with Terminal 5`s challenges. The result? £4.3 billion of design and construction delivered on time, to budget and safely is to be commended given the industry statistics but the acid test will now be the quality of the 30 million passengers experience and the operating costs that have been left to stand the test of time.

Sharon Doherty is HR and organisational effectiveness director for Heathrow airport and Terminal 5. Sharon has previously worked in consultancy, financial services and retail. Her specialism is people and change. 2002 to the end 2007 she was accountable for the approach to people management and organisational change on Terminal 5.