Boss of the year

While some major contractors such as Laing, Amey and Jarvis have stumbled in recent years, others have quietly gone about building their business. And then some. Witness the emergence of Balfour Beatty as one of the top 15 largest contractors in Europe, and the second largest in the UK, behind Amec. Five years after emerging from the old BICC business – Balfour Beatty was its construction arm – the £3.6bn-turnover group is making £130m profit a year and has £124m in the bank at the end of 2003. Enough, even, for its ever-watchful chief executive, Mike Welton, to raise a smile.

Well, now he has even more to smile about. His all-round achievement last year so impressed the panel of judges at Tuesday's Building Awards that they endowed him with the new, KPMG-sponsored award of chief executive of the year.

In a year that was something of a landmark for Balfour Beatty as a whole, Welton oversaw the financial close of two of the three Underground PPP deals in April, which has already created £1.2bn worth of work for the group. Later in the year, the firm swooped on private contractor Mansell, snatching it from under the noses of a Middle Eastern consortium and putting paid to the group's dour reputation in the City.

Against strong competition from the four other bosses shortlisted for the award – Persimmon's John White, McCarthy & Stone's Keith Lovelock, Richard Cousins at BPB and Alan Murray of Hanson – Welton certainly performed strongly on the judge's first criterion: financial results. These were described as "dazzling", and the panel was particularly impressed with the firm's forward order book, which stood at £5.1bn at the end of last year (an increase of 19% on the 2002 figure).

Welton scored highly for strong leadership, a sound reputation, innovation and a commitment to stakeholder and community issues

Welton also scored highly on the judges' three other criteria for success as a construction boss: strong leadership and a sound reputation, innovation and a commitment to stakeholder and community issues. The first of these has been key for Balfour. Although its reputation in the Square Mile has been rock solid – a conservative approach to bookkeeping and its steady growth in turnover and profits has ensured that – it has struggled to master the dark art of public relations. The past four years has seen Balfour Beatty, and Welton himself, take a barrage of criticism over the Hatfield train crash, its environment policy and the quality and performance of its PFI/PPP schemes. London mayor Ken Livingstone famously described the firms that took over the running of the Tube – Balfour Beatty among them – as "the worst scum of capitalism".

Welton, who joined Balfour Beatty in 1978 and has been at the helm for the past six years, has been open about the challenges he has faced. He quickly realised that contractors needed to be at the heart of any contentious debates, particularly on the PFI – his "innovative" steering of PFI projects was singled out for praise by the judges.

His reply to Livingstone's assault was typically robust when Building interviewed him three years ago: "I don't mind being called scum, because I'm the chief executive and I'm paid for it. But I do object on behalf of my staff working hard on contracts and maybe earning £25,000. I think that's grossly irresponsible."

Such leadership and stout defence of his staff has stood Welton and his company well in the marketplace. The year got off to a fine start when the firm snapped up one of the UK's biggest PFI hospital schemes, the £521m Birmingham Hospital project.