Podcast S4 Ep1: Carole O'Neil on leading a global engineering firm: change, culture & sustainability

Our guest on the Performance Leader podcast is Carole O’Neil.

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Carole is Managing Partner at Cundall, a global multi-disciplinary engineering practice delivering sustainable design projects in the built environment from 26 offices in locations across the UK and Ireland, EMENA and Asia Pacific.

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Carole embarked on a career in Human Resources quite by chance, having completed a law degree at Oxford University and decided not to move into practice. Since then, she has worked in a variety of HR roles in professional services firms across the legal and built environment sectors. She spent most of her HR career as a generalist but developed a particular expertise and interest in the development of leadership capability.

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In 2022, she was elected Managing Partner at Cundall. Carole is the first non-engineer to hold the position, and Cundall’s first female Managing Partner.

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Show notes

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(1m:30s) Carole's path into the MP role

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(3:26) Cundall as a people-focussed firm

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(6:27) How Carole sees high performance, and her high performance life outside work: powerlifting!

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(12:08) Rewarding different contributions and strengths

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(17:40) Maintaining culture through growth

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(19:27) Cundall's Zero Carbon Design 2030 goal

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(23:13) Linking transformational goals to individual contribution

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(24:30) The value of regular 1:1s, and how Cundall is evolving its approach

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(27:15) Carole's advice on having difficult conversations

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(28:50) Fostering collaboration in a diverse, global firm

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(31:57) Legacy at Cundall

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