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“Our people make our company… this is good news for them” says Hyder UK boss

Nelson Ogunshakin spoke to Hyder Consulting’s MD Graham Reid on the day the potential merger with ARCADIS was announced for the ACE Expert Insights video series (12.24mins).

Graham Reid, boss of the 1000 strong team of people who make up Hyder Consulting UK  was unequivocal in his view of the planned sale of the whole Hyder  group to ARCADIS for £256M announced last week.

“This is incredibly good news for Hyder as a company, and Hyder’s employees and for the wider ARCADIS group” he told ACE chief executive Nelson Ogunshakin in this video for the ACE Expert Insights series filmed on the day the potential merger was announced.

Mergers between consultant and consultants, and consultants and cost consultants can work well, Reid said. “They sit together better.”

He was less sure about takeovers of consultants by contractors. “For me, having spent 24 years in contracting, I can see there are very different drivers and they are very different cultures of organisation. I think a vertically integrated team on a project with a contractor and a consultant works very well. Whether or not they work well being part of the same organisation, I am not so sure but leave that to others to judge for me.”

His advice for young people trying to work out which size and type of organisation to choose was to find the culture that fitted them best. “The most important thing I’d look for as a young graduate is a company where I can get the development, experience and exposure to different regions and different projects.

“With larger consultants you are inevitably going to be able to travel round the world more; with smaller firms you get greater focus from the principals and hence a slightly more focused career development but you might not have the international opportunities.”

            

If you would like to contact Jackie Whitelaw about this, or any other story, please email jackie.whitelaw@infrastructure-intelligence.com.