Gerald McHugh

Background

About Gerald McHugh

I am a tenured business leader and I love bringing people together to solve hard problems in novel and uncertain environments. I have led P&L’s worth up to £70m pa and have won almost £3bn of new business on six continents. I also have significant functional leadership experience, where I have led Growth and Project Management functions within large, matrix organisations. I am a statutory non-executive director of a large Multi-Academy Trust and have held a Visiting Lectureship in Systems Engineering. My success is underpinned by a strong analytical skillset and a love of working with people. As a Chartered Engineer and an MBA, I have strong quantitative and strategy analysis toolsets. This allows me to make sense of significant amounts of complex information and to draw action-orientated conclusions. From here, I have the people skills and leadership abilities to see those strategies converted into real results. I have the privilege of leading more than 150 talented individuals and one of my most demanding roles is that of coach. I take great pride in supporting my team’s development and seeing them achieve new things. I place great stock in leadership, and believe that trust and authenticity are key to performance in the workplace. I seek to model this by getting to know my colleagues personally, whatever their background, and sincerely agitating for their best in the workplace. I multiply this impact by mentoring more junior leaders across the business. I believe, however, that there is much more to leadership than charisma. I demand good governance and assurance through a robust operating rhythm, I provide clear roles and responsibilities for my team, and lead through unambiguous KPIs. I draw my experience from the oil and gas, and defence and aerospace industries, where I have led significant new business pursuits and delivery programmes in both new product manufacture and support services segments. I believe that my key strength is that I am a passionate learner. I thoroughly enjoy setting goals and achieving new things. This is true of both my personal and professional life.