Where are they now?

Elaine Headlam hit the headlines back in 2001 when she joined QS and project management firm MDA as chief executive. Quite a bolt from the blue as her background had been largely in marketing, although she had been formerly a director at the RICS. Her appointment coincided with the acquisition by MDA of her branding and design firm X-BBE to create a broad-ranged “strategic consultancy”.

She was something of a breath of fresh air, promising to inspire new confidence in MDA staff and to be blunt (“I am not a bullshitter” she claimed in an interview). She also attracted fame in QS circles by being pictured with her dog Presto, a wheaten terrier, in the pages of QS News’ sister magazine Building (see left). “I’m a bit worried he’ll upstage me,” she said at the time.

Yet within a couple of months of starting a bid to get the firm back on track, Headlam became ensconced in the soap opera that surrounded the firm earlier this decade. New management was brought in, including former J Sainsbury construction director Charles Johnston as chairman, and a vote of confidence was held over Headlam’s position by the firm’s shareholders. She won out in the vote in early 2002 but promptly resigned a month later.

Where is she now? Headlam herself declined to detail her life post-MDA when called by QS News this week. “No thanks,” she politely stated. Industry sources claim that after leaving the firm Headlam ran a charity in Surrey for about a year and has since married and retired. “I think she is living in domestic bliss doing nothing but walking her dog,” a source says. “I don’t think she wants anything to do with construction.”