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Latest Harvard Award Winners
USIT will be funding places at Harvard in 2012 for John Bentley, Severn Trent Water and Hellier Smith, Jersey Water. John is a Chartered Engineer responsible for the delivery of around £100m/year capital investment from inception to commissioning, responsible for around 100 staff, including contractors and design consultants. John is looking to engage and develop his team and was attracted to Harvard by its world-class teaching, variety of students, non-traditional techniques and strategic talent management.
Helier is a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Director and is one of two executive directors reporting directly to the board of Jersey Water. Jersey Water has a number of challenges to face in the next decade or so and will require strong leadership; there is arguably nowhere better than Harvard Business School for him to develop the necessary leadership skills.
2011 Harvard Award Winners
High Potentials Leadership at Harvard University
The experience of a week on the High Potentials Leadership Programme at Harvard Business School is one that will stick with me for a while. Everything about the trip was extremely testing but rewarding.
The test starts with the USIT application for their Harvard Award. Every year USIT sponsor a few people through the course who they consider could be the future leaders of the utility industry – of course I was flattered to be chosen for an interview with the USIT Trustees, to tell them why going on the course would benefit myself, my organisation and my industry, but I came out of the interview feeling like I had done six rounds with Mike Tyson. It was tough, but I had done enough to convince the trustees that I would make good use of going on the course, so last May I was booked on a flight to Boston with two other USIT Harvard Award winners.
The Harvard Faculty have some of the most inspirational teachers I have experienced. The whole course is based around a series of case studies which thrash out key leadership skills and issues. It is an engaging way to teach. You review a case study before each lecture and tease out what you think the relevant issues are. Then you sit down in your ‘Board' and review the case. Your Board is made up of eight colleagues from the course who live in the same accommodation as you. You may have noted ten points of relevance about the case, but in discussing the case with your Board you will find twenty others because your fellow Board members have different business perspectives. After the Board meeting it's on to the lecture which is conducted in a ‘bull ring' - a tiered set of lecture seats in a horse shoe shape. The Harvard Professors have boundless energy, leaping from one side of the room to the other, asking delegates at random what they think of this aspect of the case, or how would they have reacted to a similar situation. You have to be well prepared in this kind of environment, but everyone is and most people are desperate to share their thoughts on the case - this is what I describe as high octane learning!
The most memorable lecture was from John Kotter, the master of change management (you might have read that book that he wrote with the penguin on the front) who captivated all the delegates with stories of leaders who had become truly inspirational to those who worked with them. This is the bit that makes a difference to you, the realisation that everybody has the potential to be an inspiration to their work colleagues. It is just a matter of lifting your head above the day to day fire fight and giving some time to the things that we know make the difference.
100 people attend the week long course that is run twice a year at Harvard's Boston Campus. They come from every industry and every continent – in fact Harvard make sure that's the case so that delegates on the course maximise their exposure to different business sectors and cultures. This exposure is one of the most valuable parts of the course. At my first lecture I sat next to a lawyer from a Canadian Pension Fund on one side and the Chief of Staff of an Australian police force on the other. At the next lecture a venture capitalist from India on my left, and a director from a pharmaceutical company on my right. No matter what job you are in, if you've had exposure to managing business and leading people you will have something to share with your colleagues. And that is the beauty of the course, for me the learning came 50% from the course content and 50% from sharing opinions and ideas with colleagues on the course. In fact the eight delegates from the UK are meeting in London next month to compare notes on how we are applying our learning – the Harvard effect seems to stick with you!
Paul Sexton, General Manager at Veolia Water
Paul Sexton receiving his Harvard award from Lynn Cooper, CEO of Institute of Water and USIT Trustee.
2011 CPD Award Winners
Six CPD Award winners joined over 150 delegates at the SBGI Autumn Metering Conference 'Smart Rollout – an Olympic Challenge', at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham in September.
They are:
- David Halsey, General Manager Business Operations, Enzen Global
- Brett Hobbins, Team Manager, I&C Work Management, National Grid Metering
- Dean Ragoobar, Asset Integrity Technical Assistant, National Grid Metering
- Kevin Patterson, Asset Integrity Technical Auditor, National Grid Metering
- Kier Mayers, Project Manager, OnStream
- Ash Singh, Portfolio Management Team, OnStream
Six people were funded to attend this year's Institute of Water Annual Conference in Swansea; they are:
- Daniel Boyce, Technical Assistant, Bristol Water
- Anna Gocher, Analytical Team Leader, South West Water
- Stephen Hepburn, Project Manager, Black & Veatch
- Ashley Moule, Capital Project Engineer, Dwr Cymru Welsh Water
- Shelley Williams, Sampling & Analytical Scientist, Portsmouth Water
- Zhong Zhang, Principal Environmental Planning Officer, Environment Agency Wales
2011 Business Skills Award Winners
The following Awards have been granted:
- Akua Adu-Gyamfi, formerly Leakage Analyst, Bristol Water, for MSc in Water & Environmental Engineering, University of Surrey
- Mike Armstrong, Design Engineer, Land & Marine Project Engineering, for second year of MSc in Subsea Engineering, Robert Gordon University
- David Bamber, Group Fleet Manager, ANSA Group, for Development of the Buyer, Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply
- David Bowen, Principal Consultant, MWH Farrer, for W200 Understanding Law, The Open University
- Simon Cyhanko, Distribution Operations Controller, Northumbrian Water, for personal coaching
- Tom Hall, Business Systems Co-ordinator, The Clancy Group, for second year of Executive MBA, Cranfield University
- Amy Leathard, Regulation Analyst, South Staffs Water, for Foundation & Practitioner courses Prince2 and Managing Successful Programmes, The Knowledge Academy
- Charlotte Lee, Development Engineer, Bristol Water, to complete a Post-Graduate Certificate in Water Management, Cranfield University
- Dan Penney, International Sales Director, Flexseal Couplings, for Finance for Non-Financial Directors, The Institute of Directors
- Mandip Phandey, Marketing & Office Manager, Rapport UK, for IDM Certificate in Digital Marketing and Award in Email Marketing, Institute of Direct Marketing
- David Robin, Senior Systems Information Analyst, The Clancy Group, for MSc Information Systems Management, Brunel University
- Darren Sheen, Contract Director, RPS, for Prince2 Gold Blended Learning, ILX Group
- Dwayne Sturk, Bid Co-ordinator/Technical Author, Enterprise Managed Services, for MBA, University of Leicester
2010 Harvard Award Winners
The trustees agreed in December to fund four people to attend a High Potentials Leadership program at Harvard Business School this year. They are:
- Andrew Hunt, Morrison Utility Services
- Paul Sexton, Veolia Water Outsourcing
- Davide Stronati, @one Alliance
- Graham Titterington, Enterprise Managed Services
See Also
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