Earlier in the year, Copper Consultancy nominated Senior Account Manager, Fiona Woolston, to attend the Major Projects Association’s Rising Stars Programme. Fiona has now been selected to sit on the Association’s Programme Committee, as one of its Rising Stars members, where she will help shape its events calendar.
The Major Projects Association works with its members, who are engaged in the delivery and the development of major projects, to hone their skills, improve best practice and investigate innovative solutions to industry problems. As a member, Copper can nominate one team member to attend their annual Rising Stars professional development course.
The two-day course included activites and workshops that enabled participants to explore the challenges facing the industry, and how they could be solved, as well as offering attendees prime networking opportunities and a chance to develop their leadership skills and build their business confidence.
The course also reinforced some of the common misconceptions across the industry about the purpose of stakeholder and community engagement. Through Fiona’s contributions during the course, our peers got an insight into the value of good stakeholder engagement and how Copper supports its clients to deliver successful projects. Among some attendees, it was evident that this approach was not necessarily at the forefront of their minds when building a project team.
Copper is the only communications consultancy with a Major Projects Association membership, and therefore we can bring a different perspective to the table and increase our positive contribution across the industry. To that end, Fiona applied for this year’s Rising Stars position on the Association’s Programme Committee, to which she has since been successfully appointed. The Committee will meet four times (2020-2021), and this gives Fiona the chance to directly shape its events programme to ensure that through those activities, emphasis is continually put on the value of stakeholder and community involvement at every stage of project development.
At Copper, we use our skills and expertise to secure societal licence to operate for projects of all sizes and levels of complexity. We help to improve how projects are understood and perceived, reducing the risk of programme delays, helping to avoid increased costs and building our clients’ reputations and political standing in the process. Many of these results are not immediately obvious to some developers. Championing this approach through the Association’s events programme will enable us to continue to increase social value across the sector, and build advocacy for even the most challenging projects through effective engagement.
If you want to find out more about the value of stakeholder and public advocacy for your schemes, please contact Fiona.woolston@copperconsultancy.com.
