Former publisher and events organiser Neil Levett has been elected onto the IHE Council. As someone whose background is very different to most of his colleagues in the organisation, we caught up with him to find out more about who he is, and how he came into the industry
From selling advertising in Hello! Magazine, owning and running trade shows in Oil & Gas Exploration and Stadium/Arena Management (in Japan and Houston) to owning and publishing Highways magazine, the launch of the original Highways Awards and setting up Smart Highways – how did you get started in all of that that?
My father was Managing Director of Thomas Telford and was involved in the launch of New Civil Engineer magazine. When the Institute of Civil Engineers decided to divest their publishing and exhibitions business in the mid 1990s, he oversaw the sale to Emap. As part of that departure, he negotiated to buy Highways Magazine for a pound, so I gave Dad 50p and took a half stake. We took it over and published it for over 20 years.
And that introduced you to the industry?
Yes, I started by selling advertising for the magazine. That meant driving around the country meeting people from the highways industry. I remember my first sales call was to Highway Care on Detling Hill in Kent, and talking to them I realised straight away that what they talked about and what they did was really interesting. I drove on the roads all the time and saw immediately that clever ways to improve them really mattered.
Driving around, I was actually getting advertising leads at the same time. I’d sit in traffic jams at roadworks and write down the names of the companies that I could see working there. Then I’d go back to the office with a list of maybe 20 companies if I’ve been out for a week, and they would be my forthcoming sales calls.
From there, you obviously start to learn what these companies do, and you start to put the jigsaw puzzle together of how the industry works. I suppose you then you begin to feel a little bit part of it.
So what innovations did you introduce to your business?
Every process that the business had in the 20 plus years we had it for, I had a hand in. That was invaluable learning for me and something that I take to my consulting work now. I had a saying that drove Dad mad which was “don’t criticise me for not knowing what you know, coach me so that you don’t have to point it out again.”
While we developed Highways Magazine, we introduced a Golf Day that ran for about 12 years in aid of the Lighthouse Club, which is the construction industry’s Benevolent Fund. As well as being a good thing to do – and we helped raise a lot of money (over £100K) – it also enabled me to get to know more of the key figures in the sector on a social basis. Through this IHE approached me and asked me to have Highways as their official magazine, which is when I started to work with them.
At the same sort of time, the Highways Magazine Awards came about. I was in Amsterdam at Intertraffic and I could see all these companies coming on to the booth telling me about this new product or telling me about this contract – all the good things that are happening in the sector. And they weren’t being recognised. So when I got home, literally within 36 hours, we launched the website and the Awards that we first held at the ICE in great George Street, London.
For me it was a surreal experience as that’s where I used to do my work experience when I was a teenager in summer holidays, so it was nice to go back there as a customer rather than just delivering the post!
We had probably about 160 people come to the event in the Great Hall that night and whilst the first event made a financial loss, it was abundantly clear we had hit on something that was great for the industry and from a business perspective would certainly be a great commercial success too. Now the Highways Awards have over 500 people going every year and are a key part of the highways calendar socially and professionally. Personally, I take great pride from having led to the recognition of more than 200 exceptional and worthy winners over the years.
Engineering is a key part of our national history and back then we never celebrated the huge successes we were enjoying.
Then you got out of the publishing business?
I sold the business in 2016 and after the agreed period of integration of my business to the new owners I left to set up my own business consultancy. For me, it was the right time to do something new and let the new owners take the brand in the direction that suited their business model. I’m still an avid reader of the magazine and the weekly news digest we set up “Highways on Fridays”. I’d forgotten that too, wow… at the time, that was innovative – the launch of weekly digital news, now everyone does a weekly newsletter – hang on I’m being interviewed for one here, I think! On reflection, it’s just amazing how the world moves forward at such a pace.
Since leaving the publishing arena, one of the first companies I consulted for was Highway Care, so everything came full circle. A real coincidence but serendipitous, nonetheless.
I’ve been working with them, Clancy Traffic Management and some other companies from other sectors and have enjoyed providing them with commercial strategy assistance and marketing intelligence and putting some structure in place to grow their footprint, basically.
How do you mean?
So, initially I am asked by a board of directors to review how the business is set up to make sales. It means working with the marketing and customer service teams to set goals and strategies whilst working with the sales director to get the best out of them and their team. I really enjoy coaching the individuals themselves to really force the messages home, but also to act as a conduit between the company and employees – just to listen, have a different voice and to demonstrate to the employees that the company is prepared to listen, rather than them seeing me as a barrier in between. We have had such honesty and openness from both sides that may have been held back otherwise. And it’s been very successful – we’ve made some fundamental changes in the way that clients do things. So, to sum up, I’ve been analysing a company’s structure and showing them what good could look like in certain areas if they are prepared to change. Not all companies like change, they like the thought of it but the implications of it are very uncomfortable for some people. My role is to nurture them through it and out the other side.
You mentioned other industries?
Oh my, yes. One interesting client one was a speciality camera supplier for live sport events based out of Paris. We filmed the Champions League, Six Nations Rugby and live concerts and TV shows too. I was able to demonstrate to them that regardless of what the sector the business operates in, commercial strategy consultancy is just employing those same disciplines in a different market. You have a structure; you have a formula, you put it in place, and you continue to follow those principles to achieve success. We continue to see some super success there.
And you’re always one to spot an opportunity…
You mean keepadistance.co.uk? Ha, yes. It’s my latest venture… It’s not just a business opportunity, it’s a vital business service. As a world population we have faced the biggest single upheaval in business ever, with the sudden economic impact of Coronavirus and it’s vital that businesses can get back to work to keep people employed and deliver the taxes needed to fund the NHS and other public services. I was consulting with a business that wanted safety solutions in their facility and found some tags that set a distance – be it two metres when social distancing was introduced, the new one metre plus or any other figure you want – and then the tags vibrate and light up when you get too close to another tag. But cleverly, they also log each time they go off and with which tags, so if you do have an illness reported in work you have an instant track-and-trace that tells you which people may be affected. It means they can get a test and self-isolate but everyone else can stay at work and you don’t have the massive expense of closing a plant for two weeks. These are being used all over the country already – so Keep A Distance is delivering this products, and loads of other safety solutions such as screens, signs and sanitisers that can get Britain back to work right now – and boy do we need to!
What does all this mean for your role with IHE?
I am used to running business that specialise in providing products and services for niche clients and have the benefit of being around the DNA of IHE for 20 or so years. IHE has traditionally been very well represented by people that are exceptionally talented and tremendously knowledgeable of engineering disciplines. But one of the things that any organisation now recognises is that diversity is vital – and that can be race, it can be gender – but in a business environment, it should also be diversity of skillsets and experience. I believe that everybody should be should be judged on their abilities, their achievements and their potential rather than anything else. So the fact that I’m not a qualified engineer, but I have these 25 years plus experience of running global businesses, generating revenue, creating reactive products and services and events that are tailored to a certain customer base (and having success with those) means that that’s something that I can offer IHE.
There is a plethora of supply chain companies that would like to engage deeply with these members and the members are, by nature, inquisitive to learn more. As a member of council, I’ll be in a position now to help IHE deliver the type of messages that the IHE members want to hear, and to provide the type of service that they require to help them with their continued professional development.