00:01 I’m Robert Holt and I’m the director of education at Carillion. That means I’m responsible for Carillion’s education business in the UK whether it be Building Schools for the Future, further education colleges or university in England, Scotland and Wales.
00:18 Carillion is, it’s the biggest business services organisation in the UK which is fundamentally facilities management, construction and we also own TPS which is an architecture and design business.
00:31 The relationship with Partnerships for Schools is absolutely fundamental to our business. My role in education is basically to identify potential opportunities for work winning across England in Building Schools for the Future and which projects best fit Carillion’s portfolio and offer.
00:50 When I was a young lad at school I thought I was going to be a footballer, so I left school with no qualifications to speak of really and ended up leaving school as a gardener so when I was a gardener then I’d never thought that I’d be in this position now but over a period of time I always got a few lucky breaks, me dad got me my first job as an apprentice joiner and then I started to knuckle down I got became an apprentice then thought I don’t really be working on the tools for the rest of my life and then basically went ONC HNC RICS MBA and just carried on working me way through to where I’ve got through to today.
01:25 Probably underperformed really, didn’t put the effort in that I should have done at school, my dad was a gardener at Rochdale area health authority and then he became foreman gardener eventually and through his connections he got me in as a, first of all a gardener working in his team and then from there as, he got me the apprenticeship in Rochdale which, that’s what I say was a really lucky break because I didn’t have the qualifications quite that you needed to get the role if I’d have been sort of even playing field really.
01:56 I finished, finished the course, to everybody’s amazement really from very simple things that been left handed all the vices were on the right hand side and nobody could work out why I couldn’t do a mortise and tenon properly, and so they realised the vice was on the wrong side so when they sorted that I was up and running and then went from strength to strength, passed the exams but it, I just realised that having passed those exams that I could actually do much better than I’d achieved so far. And because I was doing a manual trade and doing something intellectual in the evening actually I could see where I could get to, and I could see my route out of becoming a joiner to be more management if you like, so I managed to get onto the next course which was my HNC and again I could see the next level away from where I wanted to get to and I could see that I needed to get more of a private sector experience from a construction perspective.
02:51 So then while I was working, I was almost doing the theoretical stuff ahead of what my day job was if you like, so I was doing, trying to get as much theory behind it ready to apply for the next job, always trying to keep one step ahead of where I needed to get to, then the role came up at Calderdale college, is head of states and facility and that was my big break in terms of management I was on the senior management team within the college.
03:14 Although it was in a small environment I was the person that was responsible and that and I took great pride in sort of developing myself in that and again they gave me the big break to go and do my MBA that was the big stepping stone for me from there on.
03:27 They knew that I was absolutely committed, they knew I was gonna work really, really hard, they could see that I was ambitious without being over, without being over ambitious and that I was really trying to make a difference for everybody that I worked for and with. I haven’t always stopped a long period of time with some organisations, sometimes less than 2 years, but I’ve made sure that I’ve got out of those organisation experiences what I needed to go onto the next step, whilst making sure that I delivered what those organisations wanted out of me.
04:08
Robert Holt
Rob Holt
I’m Robert Holt and I’m the director of education at Carillion. That means I’m responsible for Carillion’s education business in the UK whether it be Building Schools for the Future, further education colleges or university in England, Scotland and Wales.
Carillion is, it’s the biggest business services organisation in the UK which is fundamentally facilities management, construction and we also own TPS which is an architecture and design business.
The relationship with Partnerships for Schools is absolutely fundamental to our business. My role in education is basically to identify potential opportunities for work winning across England in Building Schools for the Future and which projects best fit Carillion’s portfolio and offer.
When I was a young lad at school I thought I was going to be a footballer, so I left school with no qualifications to speak of really and ended up leaving school as a gardener so when I was a gardener then I’d never thought that I’d be in this position now but over a period of time I always got a few lucky breaks, me dad got me my first job as an apprentice joiner and then I started to knuckle down I got became an apprentice then thought I don’t really be working on the tools for the rest of my life and then basically went ONC HNC RICS MBA and just carried on working me way through to where I’ve got through to today.
Probably underperformed really, didn’t put the effort in that I should have done at school, my dad was a gardener at Rochdale area health authority and then he became foreman gardener eventually and through his connections he got me in as a, first of all a gardener working in his team and then from there as, he got me the apprenticeship in Rochdale which, that’s what I say was a really lucky break because I didn’t have the qualifications quite that you needed to get the role if I’d have been sort of even playing field really.
I finished, finished the course, to everybody’s amazement really from very simple things that been left handed all the vices were on the right hand side and nobody could work out why I couldn’t do a mortise and tenon properly, and so they realised the vice was on the wrong side so when they sorted that I was up and running and then went from strength to strength, passed the exams but it, I just realised that having passed those exams that I could actually do much better than I’d achieved so far. And because I was doing a manual trade and doing something intellectual in the evening actually I could see where I could get to, and I could see my route out of becoming a joiner to be more management if you like, so I managed to get onto the next course which was my HNC and again I could see the next level away from where I wanted to get to and I could see that I needed to get more of a private sector experience from a construction perspective.
So then while I was working, I was almost doing the theoretical stuff ahead of what my day job was if you like, so I was doing, trying to get as much theory behind it ready to apply for the next job, always trying to keep one step ahead of where I needed to get to, then the role came up at Calderdale college, is head of states and facility and that was my big break in terms of management I was on the senior management team within the college.
Although it was in a small environment I was the person that was responsible and that and I took great pride in sort of developing myself in that and again they gave me the big break to go and do my MBA that was the big stepping stone for me from there on.
They knew that I was absolutely committed, they knew I was gonna work really, really hard, they could see that I was ambitious without being over, without being over ambitious and that I was really trying to make a difference for everybody that I worked for and with. I haven’t always stopped a long period of time with some organisations, sometimes less than 2 years, but I’ve made sure that I’ve got out of those organisation experiences what I needed to go onto the next step, whilst making sure that I delivered what those organisations wanted out of me.
Robert Holt is the Director of Education at Carillion, "That means I'm responsible for Carillion's education business in the UK whether it be Building Schools for the Future, further education colleges or university in England, Scotland and Wales". Rob left school with few qualifications, but took the opportunities given to him and worked his way up to where he is today.
External links
Sector Skills Council for the Construction Industry
As part of icould's continuous development, we plan to include additional material from icould storytellers in the form of Blogs and other information which will enrich their filmed stories. So watch this space!
Comment guidelines, terms and conditions
If you think that a comment that has been posted is offensive, unsuitable or has in some other way breached our terms and conditions, please email us at comments@icould.org.uk with a link to the comment and your reasons for objecting to it. Please note icould reserves the right to remove any comments that are not appropriate.
