RMITIn3 - Emma Hendry, CEO Hendry Group

Transcript

TITLE: RMIT In3 - Genevieve Reid with Emma Hendry

VISUAL: RMITIn3 Logo appears

AUDIO: Intro music plays

VISUAL: Location shots inside RMIT Storey Hall Conference Room, Melbourne central station visible through the window. Camera cuts to interview setting with two people, Genevieve Reid and Emma Hendry in Conversation

AUDIO: Music fades

Genevieve Reid speaks: Emma Hendry, we're here at RMIT to learn about your organisation, and also some of your predictions for the future, and the future of our workforce, so welcome.

Emma Hendry speaks: Thank you very much for having me.

Genevieve Reid: Tell us a little bit about Hendry. It's a really interesting, dynamic, and changing business, and we'd like to learn a lot more about it.

Emma Hendry: At Hendry, we're Australia's leading built-form advisory firm, but what we really do, is we introduce the latest in technology, and the built-form a digital-proofed environment.

Genevieve Reid: Thinking about Hendry, and particularly the work that you're doing, what are some of the careers, and the specific roles in your industry that we don't know about now, that would be useful for our students and researchers to hear a bit about?

Emma Hendry: I think I can look at it from two perspectives. The outside in, so we're attracting talent from sectors that perhaps didn't even look to our industry before, the UX specialist corridors for example, the custom service skills, and decision making, and problem solving, just the dexterity of thought of these types of sectors coming in. Then from the inside out, you'll even see with financial institutions, they'll have a Head of Risk and Compliance, Head of Engineering, Head of Facilities Management, so there's so much opportunity, not just within our sector, but through the complimentary sectors around us.

Genevieve Reid: How has that evolution taken place, and how did you know that you needed to change and adapt like that?

Emma Hendry: I think what really made me realise we needed to sort of pivot into this solution-driven economy was when I really started to see the prevalent issues in our market, so instead of letting what we do drive the outcomes, what I did was, I actually went to the clients. I went to industry, and I looked at their problems, and said, "Okay, what skillsets do we need "to solve their problems, and the problems "that they're going to incur in future as well?"

Genevieve Reid: What do you think that means now, for students are who are with us at RMIT University today? Now that you're talking about ecosystems, collaboration. We're moving away from, potentially, just a profit-based scenario. What do they need to be thinking about their careers and their futures, and the skills that they need?

Emma Hendry: My first point would be never stop learning. Your education does not finish when you leave university. That is a core competency that needs to be driven into everyone. You should be learning something every day. If you don't feel uncomfortable, you're not learning. Second, is become competent in agility and fluidity. Your career is going to change. Younger generations are gonna be facing a 100-year life, so this three-cycle life that we're experiencing today just won't exist into the future, and that's where you need to actually start to look your career as a portfolio career, and you're gonna need different skills to transition through the different periods of time in your career, so to me, my biggest point would be, learn to be agile, learn to be fluid, and never stop learning.

Genevieve Reid: Here's a big question, Emma. If you didn't sleep, and you had all those extra hours, what would you do with the time you got back?

Emma Hendry: That's a really good question. I'd do lots of things, but the one thing I think I miss the most is just reading for fun. It's great to learn different things, and go somewhere on a journey that you wouldn't expect, and maybe even the old classics, the old philosophy, so that's something I'm really passionate about, and I'd love that extra time in the day.

Genevieve Reid: What is the one thing, Emma, that you've learned in your career, that's the most helpful to you?

Emma Hendry: Failure is good. Fail fast, and fail often. Failure isn't a negative, it's a positive. It teaches you what not to do, and how to do it better, and it also teaches you to have that type of drive, to actually do better the next time.

Genevieve Reid: Emma, thanks for joining us today, here at RMIT, to talk about your industry.

Emma Hendry: Thank you, it was a great honour to be here.

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