CEO Today UK Awards 2021

65 CEO TODAY UNITED KINGDOM AWARDS 2021 Construction Firm Profile Beard is an award-winning, £160-million-turnover construction company operating across southern England. Established in 1892, we are a family-owned company with family ethics which specialises in building for education, commerce and industry, and sports and leisure, including complex projects for public and private sector organisations. We were fortunate enough to be named among the top performing businesses in the UK in 2020 in a prestigious league table published by the Sunday Times newspaper. The key drivers of our success are our focus on three things: prompt and faultless delivery of our building projects, the high level of effort put in by our staff and our strong financial control. We take our responsibility as a good employer very seriously, so have held Gold Investors in People (IIP) status for 10 years and an IIP Health and Wellbeing award for three years. Our investment in technology over recent years as well as our thorough approach to risk management, meant that we were well prepared when the pandemic hit, enabling our people to adapt effectively to new ways of working. We were also able to continually operate all our construction sites safely, throughout all lockdowns, by implementing enhanced safety procedures. A key pillar of our strategy is the effectiveness and efficiency of our supply chain; this contributes significantly to maintaining our reputation for quality and delivery excellence. We strive to develop long-term relationships with our supply chain, forming mutually beneficial partnerships that underpin our ethos of excellent customer service. A key element in these respectful relationships is the priority we put on prompt payment. At Beard we buck the trend of the construction industry by paying all our suppliers in an average of 28 days. In 2019 we founded The Beard Charitable Foundation to mark 125 years in business. The aim of the Foundation is to support Beard employees in their charitable and community pursuits, providing funding to add to that raised by individuals or teams. We are also heavily involved with schools and universities in the communities around our offices, actively encouraging the next generation into careers in construction through apprenticeships and our graduate scheme. Beard remains financially robust; we hold a strong cash balance and zero debt on our books. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, we had an exceptional performance in 2020 and entered 2021 with a head of work in excess of £100million. We are therefore well positioned for the future. Looking to the future our commitment remains to: • Keep health & safety central to everything we do • Maintain the financial stability of the company • Work effectively and collaboratively with our people, customers, and supply chain. www.beardconstruction.co.uk About Mark Beard Mark Beard is the fourth generation of Beards to take the helmof Beard Construction. He has worked in the UK and Australia construction industry for over thirty years. He been chief executive of Beard since 1999 and in that time the company has grown nine fold. Mark’s key achievements include developing a culture which is focused on staff development, customer service and continuous business improvement. Mark has a long list of achievements and acknowledgements outside Beard. In 2020 he became the 117th president of the Chartered Institute of Building at a point when CIOB members and the wider construction industry are facing one of the greatest challenges in the Institute’s 186-year history. Mark is also a Chartered Environmentalist, a member of Henley Business School Strategy Board, Governor of Christ Church Cathedral Choir School, Patron of Alexander Devine Childrens’ Hospice, patron of Radley College Real Tennis Court and a playing member of the MCC. He was Oxfordshire Businessman of the Year in 2004. Beard CEO of Beard Construction Mark