Sir Neville Ian Simms (born 11 September 1944) is a British businessman and civil engineer who was CEO of Tarmac plc from 1992 to 1999.
[1] Simms was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Crediton and King's College, Durham, which had become Newcastle University by the time he graduated with a first class honours degree in civil engineering in 1966,[3] and then completed a post-graduate degree in engineering at Glasgow University in 1970.
[4] After training at Ove Arup, he joined a civil engineering contractor, A. M. Carmichael, on the M9 motorway out of Edinburgh and, when that firm went into liquidation in 1970, the contract was taken over by Tarmac.
[7] Simms was heavily involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel and served as Joint Chairman of TML for the last three years of the contract.
[9] Simms was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1998 New Year Honours,[10] and holds Honorary Doctorate Degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Wolverhampton.