Who are Vercity?
Vercity is the powerhouse behind world class social infrastructure service with colossal social, economic and political influence, managing physical assets in the built environment on both sides of the Atlantic. We are all experiencers, customers, patients, students and users of Vercity services in transport infrastructure, waste, justice, emergency services, street lighting, healthcare, student and social housing, defence, education, project finance, renewable energy and roads.
Established in 1997, Vercity is the largest SPV Manager of PPP and PFI infrastructure assets by size and value. Vercity provides a comprehensive range of specialist consultancy services for managing complex infrastructure companies, projects and assets to create, manage and deliver value, and is increasingly branching out to provide related services to a diverse range of investment clients to ensure a sustainable future.
Vercity currently employs in excess of 300 staff, managing over 100 projects throughout the UK, Europe and Canada, comprising accommodation assets in excess of 3.5 million square meters with an aggregate capital value of more than £30 billion. Vercity has experienced fast growth in recent years, including the acquisition of John Laing Project Management Services, and now has a turnover of over £30 million per annum.
And Vercity manages complexity at scale with excellence. As Gold Winner of the Partnership Awards 2020 SPV Management Company of the Year, Vercity are the leading SPV and asset management company in the UK, Europe and Canada. In 2016, Vercity became the first SPV Management Company to gain accreditation to the ISO55001 Standard, which informs their work and allows them to live their strap line; Intelligent Management of Assets.
What showed up?
To thrive in this scaling and challenging environment and retain their gold standard performance, the Vercity team hold the values of teamwork, commitment, integrity, professionalism and partnership dear. The senior leadership need to be resilient, develop outstanding relationships and consistently be their best driving for continuous improvement, exceptional value and client confidence.
However, it can be hard to balance all these vital elements in such a complex and constantly shifting ecosystem while keeping their stakeholders happy and ensuring returns on investment. Sometimes inconsistencies creep in or pressure behaviours show up.
Vercity takes a fresh approach to developing its people preferring a personalised approach to leadership development because it is precise, focused, highly cost effective and encourages self-leadership. This was needed to compliment a more structured biannually run Senior Leadership Programme for emerging talent. It was felt that using an independent coach to support specific Vercity leaders not only freed-up capacity within the HR team, but afforded a degree of impartiality to help guarantee successful outcomes.
Coaching was chosen as a way of accelerating leadership capability, address specific challenges, and allowing each leader to develop their own blend of coaching goals, actions and outcomes. This has been a huge benefit to both Vercity and its leaders in creating the next generation Board.
“Victoria is the most talented and adaptable coach that I have worked with. She brings extraordinary insight, commercial acumen, broad business experience, and emotional intelligence to each assignment. She gets straight to the heart of what is needed to support leaders to improve, never afraid to challenge, but always engaging. The phenomenal feedback that we have received from all participants is testament to her positive impact. And the tangible results have demonstrated excellent use of our L&D budget.” Bill Bourne, HR Director
What we did?
The generic coaching themes were to:
- Present leadership presence, impact and confidence internally and externally
- Be alive to the perceptions of others and respond powerfully and professionally
- Be authentic and aligned leaders within the business and within their own values
- Achieve consistency in their leadership approach and behaviours
- Provide honest self-reflection time to develop potential for promotion
Working with a coach is to the mind like working with a personal trainer is to the body. You get better results quicker! Coaching is a superpower that enables responsibility for creating practical actions to make real progress. It also holds you to account on things that are important to you and need to happen in specific timescales.
We provided 8 senior leaders with 6 coaching sessions over a 6-month period topped and tailed with a three-way meeting with the CEO or line Board Member to set coaching goals and review the outcomes at the end. Support from the very top gave a clear message that the leaders are valued, and their potential is worth investing in.
It was the first time that these leaders had experienced coaching. After confirming that we made a great partnership, we clarified the structure upfront and agreed a coaching contract. Then co-created a safe, trustworthy and courageous space to be bold, explore, learn, stretch and take committed action – all with a few coaching tools and techniques thrown in.
Through our supportive and challenging style, the senior leaders became more aware, prepared and empowered to navigate the challenges at a personal, team and business level. They tracked their own progress throughout and set the agenda for each session to ensure they met their own coaching and development goals.
“Victoria has made a valuable contribution to the effectiveness of a number of our emerging leaders, including one of my reports, and I have experienced a tangible step-change in their levels of engagement and performance.” Stuart Yeatman, CEO
“It has been an absolute pleasure working with Vic. The journey has been very insightful and I have discovered new strengths and resilience. Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals, and to imagine that together we can do great things. Vic has been that person at a key stage of my career and I am deeply grateful to have had her support.” Arlind Zenel, Managing Director
“I had the privilege of experiencing Vic’s coaching from June to December 2019. She has a warm, calming presence, challenging you to think for yourself and form strategies to progress effectively, asking questions which lead to positive insights. She works with you in an environment of your choice. The experience genuinely changed every element of my life for the better and should not be underestimated.” Ellie Rowland-Callanan, Marketing Manager
What was the impact?
With over £30 billion of assets under management, Vercity are looking for a clear return on investment in all activity and leadership coaching is no exception. Each coaching partnership generated learning and actions with commitment to clear measurable outcomes so the impact was tracked throughout the engagement for each leader and ultimately for the business. It also addressed some specific local challenges, cementing good practice, and improving resilience when handling and navigating difficult stakeholder relations in high pressure environments.
Qualitative:
- Smoother transition into promotion and able to hit the ground running
- Self-confidence and self-trust to face strategic and pragmatic challenges
- Positivity, versatility and resilience
- Visible difference in soft skills and collaboration
- Leaders and their teams focused on Vercity purpose and client needs
Quantitative:
- Higher employee engagement and retention
- Enhanced client satisfaction and supply chain accountability
- Increased productivity and operational effectiveness
- Financial returns
- Reputation and revenue
Whilst preserving the confidentiality of the coaching conversations, themes from individual leaders’ coaching goals were captured to measure business impact and also to inform the wider OD agenda for Vercity for the coming year.
Curious to find out more?
I coach modern leaders in dynamic growing businesses – clever people who need to accelerate their leadership maturity, impact and performance.
And clients trust me to help them get great results and show a return on investment.
If you know a company or a modern leader who would be curious to learn how coaching could benefit them, let’s connect over coffee – 07812 037728:
victoria@coxenconsultandcoach.com
Interested in social infrastructure or investment?
