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Mike
P R O F I L E
Conference call: Mike Munn President and CEO of McAdams (Best Firm Civil #17 and Hot Firm #29 for 2017), a 180-person civil engineering firm based in Durham, North Carolina.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent “T here are many challenges with growth, but they’re all mitigated by making sure only the right people are hired,” Munn says. A CONVERSATION WITH MIKE MUNN. The Zweig Letter: The talent war in the A/E in- dustry is here. What steps do you take to create the leadership pipeline needed to retain your top people and not lose them to other firms? Mike Munn: We don’t take this lightly. In fact, this is one of my primary focus areas. We believe the most effective retention tool (and growth tool for our firm) is in career development and the ability for our stars to grow and prosper in their careers here, while working on the best projects, and for the best clients. While I believe that 75 percent of a
person’s development is dictated by the individual, we’re heavily focused on that remaining 25 percent to make sure our culture promotes and accelerates stars along an exciting career path. Growth is a tenet of our firm, which creates lots of new and exciting opportunities for our teammates. In our all-hands meetings, I commonly cite that, going forward, each successive year will be “the best year ever.” Then I challenge them by asking if they’re stretching and growing to ensure that they are having the “best year ever” in their career. I am a poster boy, having risen from entry-level project engineer to CEO in less than 15 years. Our leadership team understands, first-hand, how important it is to have personal engagement with their rising stars, helping each of them to envi- sion a bigger future for themselves here at McAd- ams and then coaching and mentoring those rising stars.
Mike Munn, President & CEO, McAdams
THE ZWEIG LETTER Novem
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