PROFILE
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Profile
‘LET’S MAKE CLIENTS A FORCE FOR POSITIVE CHANGE’ NEW CIOB PRESIDENT MIKE FOY HAS A CLIENT BACKGROUND – AND HE BELIEVES THAT’S WHERE CONSTRUCTION’S BIGGEST CHALLENGES WILL BE SOLVED. WILL MANN SPOKE TO HIM
“Clients are key to all our big challenges as an industry and an institute: net zero, building safety and quality, digital technology, training and apprenticeships, social value, diversity and inclusion, procurement practices, to name a few. The CIOB has a lot of ‘client side’ members – so can we help clients be a force for positive change?” Mike Foy is talking enthusiastically about one of the main themes of his CIOB presidency, which starts this month. And through his career working in local government and at the Department for Education (DfE), he can speak with considerable authority about the client role in construction. “The client role is frequently undervalued within the industry,” believes Foy, a CIOB member for 51 years, who received an OBE in 2017 for services to education. “Clients have challenges around skills, knowledge and resources – but this is where there is a role for the CIOB, because we have members in clients and down through the supply chain,” he says. Working with CEO Caroline Gumble, Foy has already helped set up and will chair a new CIOB group developing a client strategy and roadmap, with the ambition to be the “professional body of choice for construction clients globally”. “It’s a bold headline, and there’s a vast amount of work to be done,” says Foy. The CIOB has engaged a consultant to add fresh perspective. A hurdle, Foy admits, is that many clients perceive CIOB members as site managers. “The DfE has few CIOB members, with other professional bodies more prominent,” he says. “But CIOB members work with the whole project team – client, architect, surveyor, engineer – from project inception through to demolition, recycling and
16 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER JULY/AUGUST 2021
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