Laura Thompson

Tell us a bit about your role?

I head up the Workday Financials Practice for Kainos. My responsibilities are to drive the delivery of scalable business solutions to our customers globally and to extend Kainos’ services excellence by building exceptional talent and Financials capabilities in the Practice.

What are the biggest issues facing leaders today?

To recruit and retain the best people

As organisations get larger there’s often a tendency toward dampening inspiration. How do you encourage creative thinking within your business?

Kainos means innovation in Greek and the principle of inspiring creativity remains central to our culture and corporate values.

We have an entire business unit whose sole purpose is to innovate and we work hard to maintain an environment across the organisation where creativity is encouraged, acknowledged and celebrated.

This is manifest in active internal programmes and initiatives including encouraging people to grow and move within the business and also develop skills meaningful to them outside work. It is mirrored in our involvement in external partnerships to promote creativity – our graduate and ‘Earn as you Learn’ programmes are particularly successful examples of this.

If you had to name three characteristics of great leaders what would they be?

Clarity. Passion. Stamina.

What advice would you give someone going into leadership position for the first time?

Be confident. Be respectful. Be an example. And always hire people smarter than you.