Employee Feature: Q&A with Penny Kennedy, Client Experience Regional Lead, UK
Meet Penny Kennedy, Client Experience (CX) Regional Lead, UK at Copperleaf®. In this article, Penny shares how her professional journey led her to Copperleaf, her favourite parts of the job, and the developments she’s excited to see in the future.
Can you tell us about your professional background and what led you to Copperleaf?
“I started my career in the UK water industry with Veolia. During my 7 years there, I moved around different parts of the business doing various projects and project management. Before long, I was introduced to the discipline of asset management. I worked on a few operational contracts where I had the opportunity to do a bit of everything from asset tagging, risk mapping, and asset management maturity assessment, through to scoping and overseeing capital projects. From there, I moved to Southern Water, where I worked on asset information and asset deterioration modelling, which gave me more exposure to the regulatory environment as well as data management challenges.
I experienced different challenges in both companies, so when the chance to join Copperleaf came up, I was excited about the opportunity to see tasks I had managed carried out in a single solution. The way long-term modelled asset needs could be taken right through to project delivery was exactly what I wanted to see, not to mention a product to facilitate conversations about low-build or no-build solutions. Being involved in helping clients take advantage of these capabilities felt like a great way to make a meaningful impact on business sustainability.”
Can you share a bit about your role and what a typical week looks like?
“Every Monday starts with a call with my ever-growing team of CX consultants to find out what they’re focused on, what projects are coming up, and how we can all support one another. From there, I’ll work on a variety of projects, such as preparing and delivering workshops, specifications, and configuration documents. With our growing UK team and client base, I spend much of my time doing resource planning for upcoming work, interacting with client success managers, sales, support, and other team leads—and of course, lots of one-on-one discussions with my own team members.”
Are there any key themes or trends you’re seeing?
“Data, data, data. A lot of our projects address challenges with data. Invariably, clients must confront or address data gaps or data quality issues. I’m firmly of the opinion that the best thing to do is start. Time and time again, we see a step change once clients see their data in the Copperleaf system—even if changes have to be made to get it right.”
The culture at Copperleaf blows me away. We have a can-do culture characterised by how readily people will help one another and work together to improve things or solve challenges. I’ve never worked anywhere that enables me to shape the culture so directly through how I conduct my day-to-day work.
What has been your best day at Copperleaf so far?
“It’s hard to pick out a single day. It’s always a great day when we nail a key workshop or go live with a client, but I get a lot of pleasure and pride from seeing the success of my team members. The best part of my job is receiving glowing feedback from our clients about my team.”
How would you describe the company culture?
“The culture at Copperleaf blows me away. We have a can-do culture characterised by how readily people will help one another and work together to improve things or solve challenges. I’ve never worked anywhere that enables me to shape the culture so directly through how I conduct my day-to-day work.”
What are you looking forward to in the next year?
“There are some cool product features on the horizon, so I’m excited to see the team implement these for our clients. I’m really eager to see some of the GIS capabilities put into practice as I’ve always been a geospatial enthusiast. I also think it will be interesting to see the dialogue around Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) metrics develop as we collaborate with clients on their value frameworks. Lastly, I think we’ve made some great enhancements to the navigation and user interface (UI) experience and I look forward to hearing what our clients think about the improvements.”
What keeps you busy outside of work?
“Starting projects I may never finish, and finishing some projects I should never have started! I like doing a range of creative things, including drawing and major home improvements. I also enjoy playing sports, especially badminton. On cold wet weekends, you’ll find me playing board games or reading.”
What advice would you give to anyone considering joining Copperleaf?
“If you’re one of those people with a can-do attitude and who likes to get involved in things, you’ll find Copperleaf a really refreshing and energising place to work. Being surrounded by people who are all keen to learn creates an inspiring and motivating environment.”
Copperleaf is always looking for talented individuals to join our team. Check out our current job openings here.