The winners of the Professional Services category are two Arup engineers who proposed a unique joint arrangement to enable them to balance leadership and family commitments.
When the Australasian chairmanship of global consulting firm Arup came up for grabs, engineers Kate West and Kerryn Coker resolved to eschew competition and pitch together a new model for the role.
“It’s just a different way of doing it. And I think they do a very good job in a very crowded space,” she says.“The initial reaction was to say ‘we aren’t looking for co-chairs – why don’t you apply separately,’” says West. Kerryn Coker: “You can’t just open roles and assume that all the good men and women are going to equally apply for those jobs.”West says: “We’ve each led multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects where you have teams of hundreds of people and you’re managing really complex programs with competing priorities.The people and organisational skills picked up over years leading large projects were required when the duo undertook a restructuring of the firm at the height of the pandemic.
But the pair say results since have proven the success of their overhaul, and hold a lesson about making big calls even if timing and circumstances don’t align perfectly. AGL chairman Patricia McKenzie on the judging panel praised the pair’s willingness to tackle difficult problems, and make hard calls.
“You can’t just open roles and assume that all the good men and women are going to equally apply for those jobs,” says Coker.
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