This year Imagile Professional Services turns five!
We’ve achieved a lot during that time, welcoming lots of new faces, working on exciting projects and joining forces with like-minded companies to grow and enhance our service offering.
During this time, our Managing Director, Luke Body, has been with us every step of the way, helping guide IPSL to become the established and respected company that it is today.
To mark our anniversary, we sat down with Luke to discuss how IPSL has evolved and grown over the past five years…
Q. Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at IPSL…
A. I’ve worked for Semperian Group for around 17 years now and have seen many changes, restructures, re-brandings, and major milestones during that time.
In 2017, I had the exciting opportunity to collaborate with a group of fellow technical specialists from around the Group to be a part of creating and growing Imagile Professional Services.
For the first time, we brought together our multi-disciplinary technical expertise in harness to expand the positive impact of our professional services offering across and outside the Group.
Throughout that time, we have retained our strong focus on supporting the Group through well-established and emerging technical challenges, and in transferring our learning and experience to wider industry clients and partners – public and private sector.
IPSL continues to have the privilege of working closely with its colleagues across the group to support the delivery of their projects and in portfolio-wide initiatives– perhaps now, more than ever as we together explore ever closer working relationships with diverse stakeholders.
From starting out as Head of Lifecycle Planning for IPSL, I then became Deputy Managing Director, and in 2019 Managing Director, with some very big shoes to try to fill along the way.
I’m very appreciative of the significant opportunities I have had to grow alongside the fantastic IPSL team and am extremely proud of what we have achieved together over our first five years.
My role now is to support the IPSL team as we advance, adapt, and upskill whilst continuing to provide expert advice and support to PFI and PPP projects. We hope to stay at the forefront, offering insight into managing and maintaining assets and infrastructure as our sector navigates the challenges and opportunities that its maturity brings
Q. What has been your most stand-out moment of the past five years?
A. We’ve had so many things that the team has cause to celebrate over the past five years. For me, a relatively recent and stand-out milestone was our acquisition of Capitec in 2020.
Capitec is a specialist compliance and risk management consultancy, with a wealth of experience in PFI and the NHS.
Bringing the Capitec professionals into the team was a natural and complementary step for IPSL. It has allowed us to rapidly enhance our service offering and expand the positive impact we can collectively bring to projects. Through the acquisition, we’ve been able to add new, expert skillsets to our team, enabling us to provide a more rounded service offering to an even more diverse client base.
Above all, their engineering expertise and understanding in the PFI and PPP space, particularly within the UK healthcare sector have been instrumental in strengthening our existing ability to support clients’ emerging challenges.
Another stand-out moment would be some of the work we did during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not least because it was a fantastic commitment from our team, but also because we were involved in some exciting and pivotal projects having a real impact for our clients.
We’ve supported on numerous projects in the healthcare space, and there are many that we’re proud of and know have made a real impact for both patients and healthcare workers.
In terms of stand-out projects, however, there’s one that certainly comes to mind.
In the early days of the pandemic, we supported Darrent Valley Hospital, Dartford with the installation of an additional VIE oxygen plant. We took immense pride in supporting on this project with our dedicated supply chain partners. The addition of the plant would go towards making a real difference to how the hospital was equipped to support people during such a challenging time.
For me, our team being able to make a real difference is always the most rewarding part of any job and it was a real privilege for us to play a small role in supporting those on the front-line fighting against the pandemic.
Q. What has been your proudest moment?
A. For me, the thing that makes me most proud of IPSL has got to be the people.
Since IPSL’s inception back in 2017, the team has more than doubled, from just 20 or so of us on day one to a team of almost 60 talented and dedicated professionals who enhance our business every day.
During that time, we’ve aimed to match the real commitment of our team, promoting professional development opportunities that will see us grow together, progress careers and always encouraging ourselves to see the plentiful opportunity in learning the new things and taking on the exciting challenges that our ever-changing industry provides.
Q. If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A. Embrace every change as an opportunity (there have been quite a few, and plenty more to come) and trust in the team around you to excel in d
