Left to right: Mike Gunn, Martina Antilova (BES) and Elizabeth Donnelly, chief executive of WES.
Beating competition from a shortlist of eight finalists, Ms Antalova was presented with BESA’s inaugural Outstanding Woman in Building Engineering Services Award, which has been introduced to celebrate the centenary of the Women’s Engineering Society.
The award recognises Martina’s specialist skills in designing building services for complex cleanroom, aseptic and laboratory environments. These skills have seen her promoted to design lead at BES, overseeing the company’s multi-disciplinary process, architectural, building services and design teams and taking responsibility for the client relationship in multi-million-pound projects.
Ms Antalova was presented with her award by Elizabeth Donnelly, chief executive officer of Women’s Engineering Society (WES), at the BESA National Conference and Awards event in London. Ms Donnelly praised Ms Antalova for her achievements in overcoming challenges early in her career, her willingness to extend her technical abilities in a specialist field and her success in maintaining a positive work/life balance.
Ms Donnelly commented: “Martina is a true inspiration to women and girls with aspirations to forge a career in the building services sector.
“Having completed her mechanical engineering degree and Master’s in building services engineering in her native Slovakia, she overcame her lack of workplace experience and the language barrier to gain professional success in a consultancy role before joining BES in 2013.
“Since then, she has been tenacious in developing her skills in a highly specialist environment to win both a promotion and recognition from colleagues and clients. All of this while raising a family and returning from maternity leave twice to lead major projects.”
Ms Antalova’s experience since joining BES includes design lead responsibility for major projects for pharmaceutical and biotech giants. Outside of work, she has also volunteered as a STEM outreach ambassador, which will see her visit primary schools to inspire a young generation of engineers for the future.
Ms Antalova added: “In the UK at the moment women only make up 11 percent of building services engineers and we really need to take action to change that by helping girls understand what the job involves and the opportunities for an interesting and diverse career.
“I have been very fortunate at BES; the company has supported me, encouraged me to take on responsibility and provided me with opportunities to progress. This is the first award I’ve ever entered and I’m hoping it will encourage other companies to recruit more women into engineering roles and help young women to see what a rewarding career it can be.”