Katie Stewart, the new president of ADEPT and Executive Director Environment at the City of London Corporation, on the evolving demands of place leadership, the succession pipeline challenge, and why she remains confident in the sector's ability to rise to the moment.

1. The role of place director is evolving rapidly — what does the Place Director of the Future actually look like, and how different is that from the role today?

Our services must change to meet the ever-evolving needs and demands of our communities, and therefore it is clear that the roles, responsibilities and outputs of place directors themselves must change too.

We have seen significant developments within almost all local government roles in recent years, but the sheer breadth of services place directors lead means the scale and pace of change has been even more pronounced.

Whether it is keeping abreast of changing regulations and legislation or the unprecedented rise in expectation and engagement from communities on a diverse range of issues, the leadership skills required to deliver critical services have been dramatically altered.

The role of the place director is now more visible, more accountable and more stretched than ever before.

In response, the place director of the future will need a far broader and more multilayered range of skills.

Traditional strengths in managing services and staff remain essential, but the future place agenda also demands strong strategic leadership, alongside the ability to dive into detail where necessary to troubleshoot issues and support transformation.

Services must become more agile and efficient, while infrastructure must be resilient to climate change and responsive to a growing and increasingly diverse population. This requires sound judgement and the ability to balance today’s constraints with future demands.

Ongoing financial pressures mean leaders must also demonstrate how investment in place services delivers multiple benefits, not only for places, but for people, health and wider local authority priorities.

Those same pressures mean the place director of the future must also be more market-facing, bringing stronger commercial acumen to the role. Whether delivering a regeneration scheme or managing a highways maintenance contract, directors increasingly need to understand the perspectives of developers, investors and contractors, not just the local authority view. These are now essential skills rather than desirable extras.

And of course, given the pace of change and uncertainty we face, the place director of the future must be resilient, inspiring and able to motivate their teams, who will look to their leaders for direction through increasingly challenging times.

2. Local government is facing a significant leadership pipeline challenge. How serious is the succession problem in place leadership, and what needs to happen — from councils, government and professional bodies — to address it?

This is perhaps where we should have some optimism. Place professionals, whatever discipline in which they began their career, tend to be deeply passionate about improving their communities and places. That energy and determination, seen at every level across our teams, is an excellent foundation for developing the next generation of place leaders.

However, the challenges in developing that pipeline of talent are multi-layered. The way we train and develop built and natural environment professionals can often pigeonhole people into narrow career paths, limiting their understanding of the breadth of services that sit within a place portfolio. As leadership roles across local government have broadened, the scale and range of professions overseen by a place director has become disproportionately vast. It requires capabilities well beyond the ‘typical’ management training often on offer.

Systems leadership is critical, and that demands a different approach to development. ADEPT’s place leadership programmes, for example, immerse current and future leaders in action learning and engagement with professionals from across the place agenda, from highways and transport, to environment, to economic development. This helps to build the wider perspective and experience these roles increasingly demand.

Furthermore, some of the most important qualities required of a place director cannot simply be taught – they come from ‘doing’. Personal and professional resilience, the ability to balance risk and the emotional intelligence needed to lead teams through constant change are capabilities largely developed through experience. The challenge for today’s leaders is creating opportunities for emerging leaders to get stuck in, take on genuine responsibilities and learn through real world challenges. As it happens, the scale of a place director’s role increasingly demands greater delegation, which offers exactly this kind of opportunity to emerging leaders to step up.

The diversity of the succession pipeline does remain an important concern. We must ensure that our teams better reflect the communities we serve. ADEPT has already made strong steps forward in encouraging improved equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within local government roles and its ‘A Place for All’ campaign in partnership with Colas, championed and amplified diverse voices and experiences from across the sector.

To encourage more Gen Z applicants to local government roles, in February 2025, ADEPT, in partnership with Department for Transport (DfT), Colas, the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) and the Midlands Highway Alliance (MHA), launched 'Find your Path' – an innovative recruitment campaign to transform how young people view careers in local government

The place sector is facing a number of critical workforce challenges which must be addressed if we are to secure a resilient and sustainable future. However, I’m pleased to say that ADEPT is working proactively with the sector to meet these challenges.

3. AI and digital innovation feature prominently in your priorities, but many councils are struggling with the basics of data quality and digital readiness. How do place leaders build those foundations while still being expected to innovate?

As the question implies, one of the most common challenges that place directors face is that our key stakeholders question why we are not moving quicker toward AI-driven ways of working.

The answer, of course, is that in many authorities, the most immediate challenge is whether our data is ready and set up to benefit from these new technological opportunities.

Place directors need to have the confidence to be able to define and navigate an effective digital transformation journey that is realistic and deliverable – starting with prioritising the less interesting but absolutely vital building blocks of assembling data and data infrastructure.

Putting in place the right governance and ultimately upskilling teams to maintain strong and resilient data foundations, will pave the way for the more exciting digital transformation to come.

Bringing that into the ADEPT context and my presidential year and theme, one of my priorities will be enabling those in place leadership roles to be ‘digital transformation ready and confident’.

This builds on the Digital Academy that ADEPT already offers; this programme is a new training initiative designed to accelerate digital and data skill development across local authorities. It helps to equip place directors and their teams with the capabilities to lead change, use data more effectively and deliver better outcomes for people and places.

4. The local election results have brought significant political change to councils across England and Wales. How does that shift in the political landscape affect the role of place directors, and what does it mean for long-term strategic delivery?

Whatever the political colour of the local authorities in which our place directors are operating, the consistent theme appears to be that of change and the need to look forward.

In many of our authorities, the political leadership has either changed entirely or moved to no overall control, a trend that may very well be a feature of the UK political landscape that is here to stay.

One of the principal challenges during such political upheaval is that it can lead to a change in direction. This is particularly pronounced where there are long term politics and/or projects that are mid-delivery, which new administrations may choose to pause, stop or modify.

It is one of the great features of modern democracy that elected representatives can make big decisions like this, and the key for place directors is being able to support those choices effectively.

In some cases, changes are without significant cost or consequence, but in others, being very clear about the consequences of stopping a project or changing a particular policy can help Members to make informed decisions that are in the best interest of the community and the authority.

In a highly charged political environment, our place directors are finding that it is incredibly important to be mindful of how emotive language can be.

A great example is that across our sector, some political parties and communities are reacting differently to investment in projects that have arisen from policies on climate change. In these cases, being clear about the benefits of particular projects, including positive environmental and cost saving impacts is essential. In this way we can make sure that decision makers have all the information they need to make the right choices.

One of the other most immediate challenges facing place directors is the need to support significant numbers of elected members who have never worked within local government before. This is also an incredible opportunity to bring new voices to the table and the more people who understand how their communities are run is only a good thing.

The core of the challenge is that many of us have not had to roll out such comprehensive inductions and briefings in our careers; but the flip side is that many of our place directors are reporting the positivity and openness that new members are bringing, offering the place agenda the benefits of fresh perspectives and energy.

Throughout all of this political change, place leadership demands inspirational directors who are able to inspire and motivate their teams, delivering vital services consistently and with care through periods of uncertainty.

5. ADEPT is marking its 140th anniversary — yet the challenges facing place leaders today feel unlike anything the association has seen before. What gives you confidence that the sector can rise to meet them?

The challenges do feel immense – to deny that would be naïve – but I genuinely believe that there are opportunities in the complex landscape we face.

Not least of these is the potential offered by a digital revolution, particularly in releasing immense capacity and improving the productivity of our sector.

Furthermore, the scale of change heralded by local government reorganisation and devolution may seem daunting, but I know that we have a talented network of professionals who have bold aspirations to help us shape the national agenda.

My greatest confidence in the sector comes from knowing the individuals I have witnessed coming up through our leadership development programmes, as well as through the many professional partners and organisations with whom we collaborate.

It’s people who make the difference at the end of the day, and I don’t believe that has changed in 140 years.

Today’s place directors are some of the most adaptable and resilient leaders I have ever met.

Through our various initiatives including our PACE, Leadership Development and Pathway programmes, we know the pipeline of potential directors is rich with talented individuals.

Rising stars with a passion for their communities, who are not put off by the road ahead and are hungry for the opportunity to meet those challenges and shape our sector for the better – they are the place directors of the future.