Staff Interview
What were you doing immediately before joining us?
Construction contractor - ISG
Previous experience? I’ve been in bid roles for over 15 years. The largest bid I’ve worked on and secured was a £500m Battery manufacturing facility.
Plans for the merged business in outline? Our vision is to be a high performing team, supporting business growth by delivering the best quality submissions in the industry. To utilise data and feedback we receive to create a bidding culture of continuous improvement and to utilise AI and other technology to make us more efficient. We want to attract and retain the best bidding professionals. And I
want to make sure that bidding is fun, and that the team are challenged while enjoying their roles and the part they play in our vision and goals.
How will your plans improve our business? These plans will help us win more work and larger projects to deliver our growth targets.
Any challenges you would like to share? Recruitment – getting strong bid writers in with sector experience is difficult. We’re making good progress but if anyone has any recommendations, do get in touch!
Immediate priorities – what does your day look like? We have lots of bids on at any given time, it’s a constant juggling
Name Chris Haynes
Job title
Group Head of Bids
Department/Division Group Bids
Date of joining Axis CLC
December 2024
Based Stratford
act. We currently have large live bids for Norwich CC and Southampton. Securing some of these large bids is critical to business growth. It’s all hands to the deck, from the bid team, ops team and other business experts to make sure we submit the most compelling high scoring bids that stand us out from our competition.
What do you need from the business/us to achieve your goals? Ultimately everyone is responsible for delivering bids: share knowledge, ideas that could help us stand out from our competitors, showing what makes us different, whether that’s how we engage with residents or some of our technical solutions.
Any thoughts on the integration process? I think it’s impossible to plan for every possibility during a merger and nailing the right balance on communication is difficult. However, I do feel the business is doing all it can to support people, and the integration team have been fantastic.
Who’s on your immediate team? Bid team leads Emma Wilson and new recruit Mike Landolt make up my leadership team. Under their leadership we have a strong team of bid writers. Nadine Potgieter is about to leave us for 12 months while on maternity leave. She’ll leave a huge hole in that period, and I’d like to thank her for her support and hard work.
Your first impressions of Axis/ CLC? Very positive. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been very supportive and willing to embrace new ideas. I was worried that people wouldn’t be open to change but it’s been quite the opposite.
Finally... Any hobbies, clubs, beliefs, activities you would like to share? I have two young daughters so not much time for hobbies but I do love being a dad. I am quite active so like to get them out and encourage them to be active whether that’s getting out on our bikes, climbing or swimming. Aside from family life I like to get out for a bike ride or run to get some ‘me’ time.