Emine Rachel Taylor-Unlu, an assistant information manager at Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV), was named Digital Rising Star of the Year, sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Building, at the Digital Construction Awards 2026 last night (18 March).
Emine has successfully led the planning and execution of a critical Business Collaborator server migration for BBV on the HS2 Area North contract – a highly complex task involving the transfer of 10 million uploads across nine delivery teams, impacting 300 organisations and 10,000 users. Her work has set new benchmarks for efficiency and digital excellence in one of the UK’s most complex infrastructure projects.
Meticulous coordination with stakeholders and experts ensured a seamless transition with minimal downtime. This led to considerable time savings, greater efficiency, better document management and improved collaboration across teams. It also safeguarded business continuity and strengthened trust in digital systems.
What the judges said
“Emine is a shining example of the kind of talent this sector needs to attract and retain to deliver its goals. We all need an Emine on our teams.”
Identifying inefficiencies in spreadsheet workflows, Emine spearheaded the implementation of Endev-o, a web-based CDE for client deliverables. Over the course of 18 months, she led concept design and configuration, user acceptance testing and the communication and implementation strategy for 300-plus suppliers and 620 mixed-task teams, managing 200,000-plus deliverables.
The transformation eliminated manual processes, reduced errors and improved transparency. This innovation saved multiple days per deliverable cycle, delivered cleaner data and set new standards. Via agile working, the implementation timeline was shortened by six weeks.
Upgrades to the Esri suite
Emine has been instrumental in delivering three consecutive years of successful upgrades to the Esri suite of products, including Esri Enterprise, Azure Postgres database and FME. These upgrades supported 1,800 monthly enterprise users performing business-critical tasks such as utility spatial analysis and database management. By navigating these changes, she ensured minimal disruption to essential workflows, improved system performance and reliability, and increased stakeholder confidence in enterprise systems.
To support HS2 Area North handover, Emine also managed the redline process for 13 structures across a 25km stretch, overseeing production, quality assurance and delivery of thousands of redline drawings to the client. This work was crucial for compliance and readiness, directly contributing to the successful opening of major infrastructure assets and securing construction compliance certificates.
Other finalists
- Patrick Geragersian | AtkinsRéalis
- Mia Macfee | Stantec
- Nathan Reid | Morero and Urban & Civic
- Olivia Zdzylowski | Laing O’Rourke
Beyond these technical achievements, Emine has also demonstrated a strong commitment to team and personal development and industry leadership. She has achieved BSI BIM Professional Certification and PMQ Project Management Qualification. She actively contributes to diversity and inclusion through participation in BBV’s EDI Champions programme, Women in BIM and nima.
The Digital Construction Awards are organised by Digital Construction Week, the Chartered Institute of Building, CM and Digital Construction Plus. Read about the rest of the winners.
To find out more about the Awards and enquire about sponsorship or entering next year’s event, visit digitalconstructionawards.co.uk.
