Otis Elevators European head, Lindsay Harvey

President, UK, Central and Eastern Europe (UCEA)

Harvey joined Otis as an apprentice, and completed a mechanical engineering degree as part of his apprenticeship. During his time with the company he has worked in sales, sales management, product development, product management, and run the company’s new equipment and sales management operations. Prior to taking on the UCEA role, he was director of the company’s operations in Australasia and China, based in Shanghai.

We’re in a golden age of skyscrapers. Not since the 1920s — the era of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings — have so many tall towers been built, although their homeland has shifted Eastward, from the megacities of the US to the oil-funded futuristic fantasias of the Middle East and the burgeoning metropolises of East Asia.

The defining technology of the skyscraper is the lift; without a mechanised means to moving people up the building, these towers would be completely impractical. One of the pioneers of lift technology, Otis, is still at the forefront, over 160 years after its foundation.