CEO’S UPDATE
Focusing on
improvement
Update from Hugh Blackwood
Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to personally principles in ‘The way we do business’ and creating new
thank Geoff French for all his hard work and posts in Internal Audit that increase our accountability and
achievements as Executive Chairman with Scott Wilson develop a continuous improvement culture.
and wish him every success as Non Executive Chairman
in this next phase of his career. This new appointment Spotlight sets out our migration towards a sector based
coincides almost exactly with Geoff’s 40 year anniversary management model and our vision of becoming an
with Scott Wilson, joining in 1968 as a civil engineering integrated global enterprise which will allow us to operate
graduate. Since his appointment as Chairman in 2002, effectively and consistently across the world economy,
Group revenue has doubled and his surefooted providing solutions globally and delivering locally.
leadership guided us through the highly successful Our community focus clearly demonstrates that our
flotation in March 2006. He remains an integral member of employees continue to add value to the community
the Main Board and senior leadership team and continues through the great success of the Graduate Foundation
to make an enormously positive contribution to the Group. Community Projects and the ongoing support for the
I am also delighted to announce that he has just been Scott Wilson Millennium Project.
appointed as Chairman of the ACE (Association of
Consulting Engineers). Finally, the talents and excellence of our people
are celebrated in the announcement of the Global
None of us could have failed to notice the impact of the Scott Wilson Awards in People First. Our success in
credit crunch on the financial markets over the past few the British Expertise Awards also demonstrates that
months. Despite having a very strong and diverse our achievements are truly international and I pass my
business, we have also been hit by the need to conserve congratulations to all the winners.
cash as funding for our continual growth gets harder and
more expensive to secure. Even though our growth may May I wish all of you a Happy New Year and my best
have to slow down for a period, this doesn’t mean that we wishes for what may be a challenging but successful and
can’t improve our business, our efficiency and our service prosperous 2009.
to clients.
This edition of Exchange focuses on improvement and
there are many examples of how, during these difficult
times, we are improving; creating even greater value for
our clients in parts of the world that previously had very
little Scott Wilson presence in the Americas; getting to
grips with improving our business systems across the
world; publishing and embedding our global policies and
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