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

 

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.

 

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

  Show notes

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

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

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

(12:08) Rewarding different contributions and strengths

(17:40) Maintaining culture through growth

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

(23:13) Linking transformational goals to individual contribution

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

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

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

(31:57) Legacy at Cundall

‍