Natalie Campbell OBE: A CEO’s take on project leadership and success

Natalie Campbell OBE is Co-CEO of ethical water brand Belu Water, a drinks business and social enterprise that puts the environment first, former Director of Insight and Innovation at The Royal Foundation, and founder of global social innovation agency A Very Good Company (AVGC). Following her opening keynote speech at the recent Women in Project Management (WiPM) conference, we spoke with Natalie to get a CEO’s perspective on what it takes to be successful in project management.

What are some unique challenges facing women in the project profession today?

I believe one of the main challenges for today’s females project is purpose. By this I mean deciding what you are passionate about, what elements of a role you love and want to thrive in. It’s all to do with your career trajectory, what the next opportunity might be, and what to study. I believe finding more time to think about purpose, to think about what brings us joy in our work, would help us get further, faster.

Are there any reasons to be positive or excited for women in the project profession today?

There are so many reasons. One of the biggest things is flexible working post-pandemic. The way that we work has absolutely changed, and the opportunity to work a contracted week or work term time hours, all of these things enable women to come back into the workplace and fit it around other commitments. I also think it makes the workplace work for everyone. The balance of doing work that you love and not having to leave who you are until the weekend, there's a lot of benefit to that.

You're someone whose professional journey has focused a lot on social outcomes. How do you determine and measure the social success of a project, as opposed to the economic success?

Measuring the social success of a project isn't always easy, but you have to do it from the very start. The set up is where everything happens. Working out who the beneficiaries are, how many people are the projects going to reach? How many people will it impact? What will it do for their life? It will enable them to travel faster, will enable them to eat better etc. All these things we know, based on the overarching project or the business case. It's about thinking from a human centred perspective. Asking what is the social difference? It’s really tied to the economics of it all. It's not just about delivering a project if you can show benefits to people, there's an economic metric that sits alongside that. I think there's value in thinking about both in tandem.

How do you balance competing goals, such as the need to deliver change with maintaining performance and raising money?

Leadership isn't easy, and maintaining balance between change, performance, and delivering value really starts with knowing why you are doing something. It comes back to the word I use often, purpose. When you focus on the purpose, what is the thing you're trying to do? It helps rank what comes first. If you are running a project and it's about performance efficiency, then the way you think about change and transformation will be different. But focus on the purpose and it will help you make a better decision around what to prioritise and what the first goal should be. You should always focus on this because it's important for project managers, and I say this as a project manager, to take a step back and look. We spend so much time doing that, but we get into the details and the reality is the things impacting our work, our timelines, our budgets usually aren't to do with us. But if we find time to take a step back and look out, then we'll be much better project managers as a result.

Of the projects you’ve worked on during your career, which are you most proud of and why?

The projects I'm most proud of are the ones that deliver change for other people. For example, when I was working on supply chain improvements in Asia. Those things are important to me. For me, my purpose is aligned to people.

I view project management from a leadership perspective as a strategic tool. It is operational in its function. If you as a business want to get from A to B, you must use the tools of project management. For me, project professionals are the heartbeat of a business and the strategic backbone.