I’m delighted to announce the promotion of Kate Keaney to CEO of Connor.
Kate joined us five years ago and has taken on progressively more senior positions culminating in her promotion to head of HR services and talent & organisation development in 2017 where she has transformed our offering. Kate brings with her a wealth of experience in HR and business consulting in sectors including financial services, IT and retail.
Many founders stay in the leader’s chair too long – often complaining when top talent leaves their business. The timing is right now for three reasons:
- We’re set-up for growth in terms of revenue, talent and growing brand awareness. This is the time and the moment when our wave of talent is ready to step-up
- We believe in succession planning so it makes sense to walk the talk
- In 2005 I promised my wife that I would pass the leaders baton on to the next generation of emerging talent in 2018, my 60th year.
Kate has been appointed CEO as clients comment on her inspiring leadership qualities and her uncanny knack for transforming businesses going through change so they become more robust, nimble and profitable. People who work for Connor all comment on our engaging and motivational style, much of this is driven by Kate and her fantastic approach to people. In addition, Kate’s talent & organisation development background means that she’s ideally suited to help us scale and she has already delivered a four-year growth plan which has been approved by the board. Kate is extremely well connected with people both inside and outside the business and has the knack of attracting and retaining top talent which we need in order to hit our growth targets.
I’m relishing my new role as business development director focusing on helping our clients with organisational design and change challenges.
Connor is growing fast, mainly as a result of our loyal clients who kindly spread the word about what we do. We make the complex simple, we have deep expertise having held ‘proper jobs’ we strive to do the right things and we demonstrate an energy and passion to deliver tangible outcomes – and have some fun along the way! We are totally confident that this cultural ‘magic dust’ is in safe hands with Kate.
Please join me in welcoming Kate into her new role.