Andrew Leavitt is an Ankura Consulting director based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has more than five years of experience in CPM scheduling, change order management, forensic cost analysis, and standard-of-care analysis across various fields and industries in construction and manufacturing.  He uses this experience to resolve construction disputes and manage construction risks.

Andrew is from Bridgewater, New Jersey, and moved to Florida before starting high school. He returned to the Northeast to attend Drexel University in Philadelphia where he studied mechanical engineering and actively participated in various extracurricular groups, including community service and academic societies. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree in 2019, and is pursuing a graduate certificate in engineering management from Temple University.

While at Drexel, Andrew partook in the school’s co-op program and had three unique six-month work experiences: He worked in a research and development lab advancing technologies for US defense programs. He worked as a plant engineer at one of the US’s last steel aerosol can manufacturing facilities. Finally, he entered the construction scheduling and disputes world at Navigant Consulting in 2017. In his six months at Navigant, he had opportunities to work on several construction disputes including pipelines, a chemical processing plant, a luxury high-rise, and a light rail project.

Andrew discovered an appetite for dispute work, so when the opportunity arose to work part-time while completing his degree, he jumped at the opportunity to learn and grow.  During this time, Navigant became Ankura.  Andrew joined the Ankura team full-time in 2019.  In his time at Ankura, Andrew had opportunities to work with the current president of AACE, Patrick Kelly, and several other world-renowned experts on construction and manufacturing projects in the US and internationally. 

In addition to his project experience at Ankura, Andrew has led initiatives in his home office in Philadelphia and firmwide.  He co-chaired one of four of the firm’s internal consultant representative councils, held official roles onboarding new consultants, and hosted firmwide town hall presentations.  He currently leads the Philadelphia office’s ACE Mentoring team, which hosts mentoring sessions for high school students interested in entering the architecture, construction, and engineering industries.

With a desire to grow his career and learn more about construction, scheduling, and disputes, Andrew joined AACE International.  He sought out membership with AACE because its RPs are the basis for many of his and his colleagues’ opinions. He co-wrote his first paper in 2023 with his mentor at Navigant/Ankura, Brian Celeste, and attended his first ConEx the same year.  This was his first experience at an industry conference. 

Following this experience, Andrew grew a desire to contribute even more to the AACE community and joined the Rising Professionals Committee.  The RPC sustained his desire to continue growing professionally and assist young professionals interested in entering construction and project controls.

Andrew advises the next generation of young professionals entering the construction, engineering, and project control industries to carry yourself confidently.  It can be easy to fall into the trap of imposter syndrome.  However, it’s important to push oneself to overcome that feeling.  A big meeting with a client may feel unwelcoming or overwhelming, but they wouldn’t have asked you to come if they didn’t think it was valuable for you to be there.