Winners 2020

Payne currently runs Ford’s huge Craiova engine plant in Romania, where 1.0 and 1.5-litre EcoBoost engines are built at a rate of around 250,000 a year. On 1 September this year she took charge of production for both the Puma and the Ecosport, from rolled steel arriving at the plant to finished vehicles leaving it. Previously she was responsible for ramping up 1.5-litre diesel production at Dagenham, and before that she was based in the US, where she was Ford’s global manufacturing manager for powertrain. She joined Ford in 1996 as a controls engineer and built up experience of engine and gearbox manufacturing. She has overseen projects in Bridgend, Dagenham, Spain, Mexico and Brazil, and delivered Ford’s first petrol/diesel flexible line in Chennai, India. She holds a master’s in electronic engineering from the University of Southampton.