At 32, he's already felt the human cost of being in charge. Rod Sweet meets the new boss at CPC
Steve Mole was the kind of graduate that makes companies nervous. With his BEng from Sussex University, he went round to consultancies telling them how quickly he intended to progress.

All but one told him his plans were impossible. The exception was the London-based Capital Projects Consultancy (CPC), whose founder John Gidman welcomed Mole with open arms. He was on the board in five years.

Mole has accomplished plenty since joining the board, including convincing fellow directors to share more profit with staff and building a team to manage softer corporate projects such as new uniforms for London Underground. In February they made him MD – and he's only 32.

In interview, Mole is engaging, articulate and surprisingly calm. It's surprising that he's calm because he took the helm at a particularly prickly time for the company.

The LION PLAZA incident
CPC made a name for itself in 2000 by becoming construction manager and project manager for the Lion Plaza project in the City of London. It was cursed with complexities. Logistics were crazy and 250m of the site's facades had to be retained. The Singaporean client also had some early funding problems. Still, it was CPC's London flagship project and it accounted for approximately 15% of its annual turnover. Then, in November 2003, CPC's contract as construction manager on Lion Plaza was terminated.

Mole says it was a terrible disappointment, particularly for the CPC team that worked on the job. After all, it was nearly finished.

"Lion Plaza was all they lived for. They were robbed of that experience, of delivering a job of that magnitude in the City of London," he said.

Just because I am MD doesn’t mean all my aspirations have been met

Six months on and Mole identifies two key lessons from the experience: work harder on client communication and take a tougher commercial stance. But when he took the CPC reins in February, the situation was still raw in that he had to make redundancies as a result of the contract termination.

And that's not all. Although he had been involved in restructuring the company prior to becoming MD, within days of actually taking the job he had to cut overheads by 40%, which involved outsourcing parts of IT and accounting and more redundancies.

Now he can focus on implementing the company's new strategy, based on a move away from offering great people to offering a repeatable package of great services, from construction to relocation to events and communications.

So what's next?
There's no reason to assume Mole won't take the company places. But he's only ever worked for CPC. Isn't he in danger of getting restless?

Mole doesn't think so. He thinks we need a new challenge every two to three years and plenty more challenges loom. He wants to double the company's turnover to £10m in three years. That could mean regional acquisitions, which will be a new experience altogether.

The Mole file

Where he Lives:
Blackheath, London
Working week:
50 hours and rising
Why he admires john gidman:
His ability to network total strangers, such as at MIPIM
Where he met his missus:
Errr... MIPIM
Favourite band:
Counting Crows
Favourite holiday:
California
Favourite restaurant:
Bar du Musee, SE10