New Appointment Kosta Kathreptakis, Construction Manager

What first inspired your career in the construction industry?

Design, creativity and attention to detail is what navigated my inclination towards the industry. Although it began with Architecture, it then developed into Building and Project Management over the years.

What excites you most about stepping into your new role at Binah?

Having had the opportunity to work both locally and abroad with organisations across the entire spectrum of scale, at the forefront of my enthusiasm is that I am working within a team environment that shares my core values.

What are the key priorities you see for yourself, and where do you believe you can make the greatest impact?

When entering a new business in a leadership role, key focus lies in two primary areas. Firstly, get to know the people and the operating framework and secondly, understand the business strategy and what our trajectory is towards that strategy.

In that light, I believe that my greatest impact will be in understanding the ‘30,000 ft’ strategy and transforming it into actions that deliver results on our projects. Part of that transformation will include bringing together talented individuals and mentoring high-performing team environments.

Is there a philosophy or principle that guides the way you approach leadership and decision-making in construction?

What a great question. Authenticity and transparency are two primary principles that I approach leadership with, which then derive trust. When those principles are used in the wrong environment, they can have a negative impact. However, in the right environment, they are pollen to bees, and we all know how important pollen and bees are to the ecosystem (if you have watched The Bee Movie).

In reference to decision-making, that goes hand-in-hand with leadership and, with that, I am going to first qualify that:

‘Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.’

The ethos of that statement is that as leaders we will always have to make decisions, and whilst the intent is always to be making ‘the right’ decisions authentically and transparently, it does not mean that they always will be upon reflection.

What is important to me is that decisions are made collaboratively amongst a high performing team; but when the team looks at me for the nod or a decision that they simply cannot make, then I am prepared to make it and own it decisively.

When you think about success, what does it mean to you beyond the completion of a project?

Many people align success with a specific goal or outcome and that is perfectly ok. High performing people are constantly moving the bar, the goalposts, usually setting it higher and further respectively.

Beyond individual project delivery success, these days my personal appraisal of success takes two viewpoints:

To have made a positive impact on someone else’s journey towards their success, and

For me to continue in a ‘state of mind’ where I love what I do daily, drawing wisdom from the phrase ‘love what you do, and you never have to work a day in your life’.

Looking ahead, what are you most excited to achieve with Binah?

What excites me with BINAH is the company’s trajectory in growth, and that growth is a multi-faceted one, encompassing geographical, commercial, project scale and, consequentially, in our teams of people. Within that, I look forward to utilising my knowledge and experience in working with scaled organisations to achieve that growth without diluting the business core values.

What lessons from your career would you pass on to someone beginning their career in construction?

The advice and lessons I would pass on to someone beginning their career in construction is to go into it humble and eyes wide open. Learn to absorb information like a sponge but, at the same time, learn to filter before drinking.

Construction is a vastly diverse industry, and where one chooses to fit in and contribute towards may take more than 10 years just to identify. So, what is important for someone entering the industry is aim to experience as much scope diversity in the industry as you possibly can, and then decide what you want your career framework to look like.

Here at BINAH we aim to do that through our multiple young talent programs that we have, be it the Cadetship, Apprenticeship or the more recently launched initiative of the BINAH Builder Program. All great programs aimed at identifying, developing and growing young, capable and motivated talent.

Beyond that, as I have demonstrated through my career journey, ‘the world is literally yours to build on’.

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