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Success stories
Samuel Knight Diversifying to build resilience cultivated on strong and clear foundations. Dan Kerr, Managing Director – Energy
Here, the new objective of making the organisation a 100% employee-owned business was highlighted as a means of creating a culture of greater accountability, while also improving internal buy-in on key growth strategies.
How is Samuel Knight thriving? Having survived the pandemic period thanks to an onshore wind breakthrough in the US, Samuel Knight has sought to build resilience to combat future adversity, diversifying its operations, regions of interest and revenue streams to enhance its offering across multiple energy sectors. The challenge Like many businesses operating in the energy sector, the pandemic period was a torrid time for Samuel Knight. As a market leading recruitment and project manpower specialist, providing engineering, technical and construction professionals on a permanent, temporary and project basis globally, the impacts of social distancing measures and national lockdowns on the company were severe. Fortunately, Samuel Knight found isolated success with an onshore wind farm client in the US that, by the company’s own admission, saved it during this tough time. However, having emerged from this, the firm quickly sought to put the necessary provisions in place to build resilience in the face of continuing tough market conditions, ensuring it could not just survive by thrive in the face of any future adversity. The solution Having downsized by 25%, the leadership team took the opportunity to revisit the vision and purpose of the business in 2021 to ensure any renewed strategy could be
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EIC Survive and Thrive
While there is 20% institutional investment in the business from a silent partner at present, Samuel Knight is aiming to buy this external party outcome 2024 – a move which will enable it to redistribute those additional shares to its staff in support of its improved ownership agenda. At the same time, the company has also been focused on adapting and evolving to capitalise on new market opportunities. This diversification and de-risking strategy was a direct consequence of the challenges faced during COVID. While the firm has continued operations in its traditional markets that include renewables, conventional power and training and development, its successes in onshore wind paved the way for it to develop a fully-fledged project solutions business in the US, as well as working in verticals including solar, battery storage more recently. In the case of solar, Samuel Knight has supplied commercial solar racking solutions provider TerraGen with a team of experts comprising project managers, operations managers, assistant site manager, project engineers, O&M engineers, performance engineer and many other roles, supporting the company with The Edward Sandbourne Solar Farm in the Mojave Desert – one of the largest projects of its kind in the United States. With a total capacity of over 2,200 MW enough to power more than 300,000 homes, the project was completed
2023