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- Rob Melling, Chief Executive of 20 Years, Announces Retirement
After a remarkable four-decade-long career with the Curtins family, our Chief Executive, Rob Melling has announced his retirement.
Rob Melling has led our business with compassion, humility and with an unfaltering drive to create the best place to work since taking up the helm of the business in 2004.
In this time, Rob has been the guiding force behind our Investors in People Platinum accreditation, award-winning in-house training programmes, partnership in the Breaking Down Barriers Coalition, appointment on project masterplans in excess of £1 billion and, our transition to an Employee-Owned Trust. Under Rob ’s stewardship, Curtins has grown to 14 office locations and diversified our services to include Geo-environmental and Transport Planning, achieving a turnover of £36m in 2023.
In many ways, Rob’s impact and incredible legacy is akin to, if not greater, than the firm’s founder, Bill Curtin who established the consultancy in Liverpool in 1960.
Employed by Bill Curtin himself in 1981, Rob Melling was recruited into the business as an Apprentice. A small detail some may know: Rob had applied and was turned down a year prior, but his tenacity saw him return 12 months later and rise quickly as a ‘bright young thing’ at Curtins.
In just over a decade that followed, he’d progressed to having responsibility over establishing a new office in Edinburgh, before joining Curtins’ Board of Directors in 1999.
From junior beginnings, Rob has carried forward the values instilled by Curtins’ founder and placed emphasis on the development, nurturing and wellbeing of employees, confident in the knowledge that this is how our clients are provided the best possible service.
Board Director, Paul Menzies has worked alongside Rob for more than 20 years and comments, "Where we were once just a civil and structural engineering firm, now we’re also a business with heart."
Despite the enormity of the decision, Rob believes that now is the right time to hand over to a new generation of custodians to steer Curtins into the next chapter. Rob comments:
“Curtins has been my whole career, and a hugely significant part of my life, but I feel very comfortable that now is the right time for me to step down. The business is in better shape than it has ever been with strong leadership, a resilient operational structure and an extremely healthy market share.”
Curtins are renowned for our strong sector spread and project portfolio ranging from £100,000 to billion-pound masterplans. In 2024, we were ranked second in the league for projects awarded in the last 12 months by Barbour ABI, totalling 100 projects worth £3617m.
“I can think of no-one better than Neil to take on this role. He knows the business inside out, and his passion and experience are the perfect fit to continue to build on Curtins’ legacy and lead the business into what I’m sure will be a bright and exciting future.”
The planning of the transition and appointing Rob’s successor has been underway for a number of months.
Echoing Curtins’ ethos of nurturing and promoting from within, we are delighted to announce that Neil Parkinson has been appointed as the next CEO of Curtins and will formally step into the role on 1st January 2025.
Neil has been with the business for over thirty years and during that time has worked closely with our fourteen offices, building strong relationships and a solid base of both commercial and technical expertise.
Rob comments:
Neil Parkinson adds,
“I am absolutely thrilled to be taking on this role, and whilst I feel the weight of the responsibility, I can’t wait to get stuck in. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Rob for a long time. He’s always taught me to put “Side Before Self”. If we look after the business; the business will look after us. I’ve got many examples where Rob has done things for the benefit of the business that aren’t necessarily the best thing for him as an individual. I’ve found that pretty inspiring and I will use that principle as a weathervane for everything I do in my new role.”
We hope you will join us in wishing Rob a fulfilling retirement, safe in the knowledge that everything he has cultivated at Curtins will continue through his lasting impact to build a better future for our people, our clients and the communities we serve.
On behalf of us all, thank you for everything Rob.
