As a PLC, one of Kinovo Group’s responsibilities is of course to offer shareholder value, but it’s also important that we never lose sight of our culture and commitment to our strategic pillars of Regulation, Regeneration and Renewables. These pillars combined with our evidenced commitment to ESG is helping us deliver customer satisfaction, accelerate organic growth, invest in our people, expand our core competencies and consolidate our geographic position. During recent investor meetings, our CEO David Bullen, CFO Clive Lovett, and COO Lee Venables, presented some interesting operational and growth strategy insights that we want to share with the social housing sector.
Providing sustainable and innovative services to local authority and social housing providers, Kinovo’s expertise and legacy across the group, combined with an appetite for growth means the brands (Purdy, Dunham and Spokemead) are perfectly placed to be the partner of choice for every housing provider embarking on their Net Zero journey.
Revenues were up in the last period to £30.3 million driven by numerous successful placements on major frameworks, and direct awards from new and existing customers. Regulation has been driven in the main by Compliance and Assurance currently representing the lion’s share of our business, but Regeneration, driven by changes in legislation, including the Building Safety Act, Fire Safety Act and Electrical Wiring Legislation, is also top of the agenda for our clients. Renewables are becoming an ever more important part of our services, as together the sector grapples with Net Zero.
None of the above would be possible without the passion and commitment shown by teams across the business, day in day out. From our operatives to our board, the themes of diversity, inclusivity and sustainability are core to continuing our growth.
Social value lies at the heart of the Kinovo brand bringing together our commitment to sustainability for clients and our own businesses which in turn helps drive our growth.
It’s important to remember that just 14% of construction (and related sectors) workers are female. This could be down to many reasons, but probably starts with schools and careers advice. How many girls are encouraged down the construction route? Is there still conscious bias about what careers are right for different genders? Equally importantly, the perception of our sector to the outside world, to all those potential groups currently not involved, can sometimes feel outdated and unattractive. It’s true we can’t erase history and we are where we are, but we need to move away from ‘bricks and mortar’ thinking and focus on promoting customer service, the softer skills, the data focus and technology talent we employ every day.
At Kinovo we practice what we preach, and the business currently benefits from the input of females across all levels of our business from Directors, senior leadership, to electricians and gas engineers. We need to smash the stereotype, but in a measured and sustainable way. The first step will come from raising awareness and sharing the amazing things our sector does, and how every day, we have the opportunity to impact on someone’s life in a positive way.
Kinovo was honoured to sponsor and have the opportunity to introduce ourselves at the WISH London networking event Rising Together recently, an event looking to raise much needed funds for Refuge; the largest domestic abuse organisation in the UK.
The esteemed panel and facilitator Baroness Sandy Verma, Christina Brooks and Tamanna Verma talked powerfully about how far we have come, and what still needs to be done in diversity inclusion and representation on boards in the built environment.
If you weren’t able to purchase a raffle ticket, you can donate to wonderful charity Refuge through the WISH Just Giving page.
