I actually began my working life in the music industry after studying a music degree. I worked in various roles for eight years, but, while I was working as an Office Manager at Classic FM, a takeover prompted me to look for other roles and that’s where my journey into the built environment began.

I found a role at the Institution of Civil Engineers and I fell in love with the work! I decided to study contract law alongside my work and this led me to Bechtel, where I developed from commercial management into senior leadership roles across two periods with the company. I oversaw high value prime contracts, critical rail infrastructure delivery across major programmes and led on the delivery of Reading railway depot – which we achieved seven months early and £33m under budget.

I went from laying down tracks, to building a track record in transport, infrastructure cost and commercial management and delivery. I knew about Mace and the projects and opportunities that the teams here got to work across – which made joining feel like a natural next step.

What do you enjoy most about your current role at Mace?

How do you redefine the boundaries of ambition?

In the hearts and minds of the people that I work with and through the places that we change together. Being able to inspire, shape, deliver, learn and celebrate together. And then improving our processes consistently so that we can do more, better, really understanding clients and exceeding their expectations.

For me, this comes by forming high-performing teams. It starts by understanding who your team members are and helping them to give the best of themselves while modelling and inspiring confidence and assurance.

At Mace, we have a culture where you truly can be who you are and have the licence and scope to grow the business and help others to grow. We change the world with what we do.

What has been your proudest achievement at Mace so far?

Winning global cost and commercial management roles for major clients are amongst my proudest achievements along with the work that we’re delivering. I’m excited by opportunities to grow relationships with our clients and we’ve secured a lot of new and repeat business because of our global offering – we’re able to deliver world-class estimating services consistently and effectively across the globe, which gives clients assurance.

Why Mace?

It’s our agility. We have a youthful business outlook and a growth mindset. Before joining, the positive experience of working with Mace was always something that clients talked about. Once I joined, I found out why. We’re a business led with humility, agility and dynamism. We have a culture of understanding and seizing opportunity. These are foundational to a holistic approach to success.

What motivates you every day?

I do like to go home on a Friday making sure I've made a difference to human beings - I was fortunate enough to have someone believe in me at the start of my career and so I know how vitally important it is to instil belief in people. Knowing you have truly made a difference to someone's day, their week, or even their career, is deeply rewarding.

You can cascade positive messages but as a leader you can also shield and support the team to create a motivating environment and this is true of both the best and the worst of times – it’s a tough, fast-moving, unpredictable industry so, for me, effective leadership means bringing that feeling of consistency and calmness to help inspire confidence.

What skills do you need to be good at your job?

Direction, competence, opportunity and motivation.

Set the direction and help people do their best. Put your arms around teams so that they are equipped, capable and remain motivated to deliver for clients.

I’m a strong advocate of empathetic leadership and the power of that in how you build high performing teams. Treat each person as an individual, get to know them along with their motivations and aims so that they can be aligned. Through that process members of the team become who they need to be and the team becomes stronger than the sum of its parts, putting it in the best place to deliver on its ambitions.

It’s juggling many things - people, processes, pipeline projects - and balancing your time between dealing with what’s in front of you and looking beyond the horizon where you can be strategic; the conductor of the orchestra.

If you hadn’t got into this line of work what do you think you might be doing?

If not a classical singer, which I studied for at university, being the sound engineer who selects and develops movie scores would have been something I would have loved to do - I have a soundtrack for everything and visualise music and so this would have been perfect for me!