One of the greatest fundamentals to building an inspiring organizational culture is effective leadership. Leaders who are aware of their influential potential or authority have a positive impact on their peers and simultaneously build an organizational culture where employees can thrive. “I am a South African entrepreneur and believe I understand the importance of building teams and company culture,’’ asserts Jason English. Jason has not only developed his forward-thinking philosophy, but also has approaches to management over a double-decade career across all levels of the corporate ladder.

Along with a project management qualification and a MBA degree, Jason holds two decades of senior management experience in the Project Management & Project services space. After serving as a member of the South African Police Force and the medical unit, he qualified as a Mechanical Engineer and worked for 15 years at Kentz Engineers & Constructors. In 2012, he quit the corporate world to pursue his entrepreneurial journey, and, in 2014, he sought a group of private investors, who funded his business venture.

Jason’s entrepreneurial portfolio includes spearheading leadership roles across various business ventures and organizations. Jason is the Chief Eco-System Officer at CG Tech and is one of a few leaders to be selected as part of the Peter Diamandis mastermind of 250 exponential entrepreneurs. In 2020, Jason was also appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of AI Laith. Since then, he has been driving the company forward with his visionary ideologies.

 

Team of Experienced Constructors

 

AI Laith was established in 1995. The company’s core operations can be broken into two main segments: Equipment and Facility Rental and EPC Services (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) of temporary infrastructure. 

When a client needs to build or rent a demountable structure, Al Laith’s team of experienced constructors and engineers can design, engineer, and construct a temporary structure fit for any purpose. The team deploys temporary infrastructure on most types of project sites through Al Laith’s wide range of product offerings, for instance, to control access or crowds, transport people, create temporary working spaces, provide VIP toilets, beer gardens, and others. Al Laith offers a unique variety of access solutions from scaffolding to powered access machines and scissor lifts, or mast climbers. Their equipment is IOT connected and can provide analytics to help choose a more optimized solution.

Al Laith’s team of engineers and CAD designers can design and engineer bespoke solutions to ensure people’s safety without compromising on build time and quality whilst optimizing construction costs. With a fully accredited training centre for PASMA and IPAF and courses onsite or at client premises, the company also provides repairing and servicing for a fleet of machinery and plant and equipment. Innovation sits at the heart of everything Al Laith does. It uses the latest in IoT systems and visualizes rendering and animation to enhance the value offered to the clients.

The company is also constantly looking at new products and services that add value to its clients. “With additive manufacturing becoming mainstream, and advancement in technological innovations occurring at speed, we hope to play in some interesting spaces soon,” adds Jason.

 

Standing Out within Competitive Space

 

Al Laith was established as a scaffolding company to participate in the growth and development of the UAE and the GCC overall. Its parent company, CG Tech, saw the Middle East as a strategic fit for the group’s growth plans backed by an incredible team culture in Al Laith. Today, Al Laith has evolved into an EPC contractor providing Engineering, Procurement and Construction of temporary infrastructure solutions across a wide range of industries, including oil and gas, construction and real estate, advertising, events, and entertainment.

The company also offers training services through its fully accredited training school. Al Laith has been recognized as the leading one-stop provider of rental equipment and temporary infrastructure in the region through numerous awards. “A large portion of that success is a result of the ecosystem that makes up the business,” remarks Jason.

 

Highly Faceted Leader

 

As a decorated leader, Jason endorses a plethora of achievements. From becoming a helicopter pilot to flying in a Russian fighter jet, he has garnered an array of experiences throughout his career. Under Jason’s leadership, the team has performed outstandingly well during the pandemic in the segments it operates and has achieved this by approaching a different mind-set that is largely focused on its people. Contrary to the industry norm of retrenching, furloughing, and cutting people, Al Laith's approach was to double down and to recruit and invest in people. “Seeing how we have grown our group of companies from 2012, where we started in a garage with 3 people, to a team of over 4,000 worldwide now, is also something that I look back on and feel proud to be part of,” says Jason.

 

Upskilling and Aligning with Brand Mission

 

At AI Laith, training has been a key aspect of success for focusing on ensuring all their teams are highly skilled and more importantly aligned. The crews are trained and tested on understanding the company’s vision, mission, and values through various ways including bi-weekly Q&A sessions by the CEO, weekly presentations and training by Divisional managers.

Project managers undergo comprehensive project management training directly given by the CEO, and the shared services teams are encouraged to align to project outcomes. In addition, AI Laith’s technology hub develops technology advancements that are aimed at improving and optimizing productivity and efficiency, as well as identifying new products and services. The team reflects on the successes and failures of each job through post-mortems to reflect on areas of improvement. As a result, these learnings enable improved performance on follow-up jobs.

 

The “Oros” Effect

 

Jason’s experience in building compelling cultures and unique “Oros” ideology has earned him an exclusive space in the industry. In his opinion, the Oros effect allows leaders to decentralize their decision-making processes within their teams. Those who can successfully transfer their vision and knowledge can expect a strong company culture and increased productivity to quickly follow.

As the business world prepares for the future by adapting to a new way of working, leaders like Jason have been preparing for this transition for some time. He is not only a strong supporter of protecting the ecosystem but also embeds a solid company culture within the organization. In his book ‘The Oros Effect’, Jason taps in his distinct brand of leadership, which promotes openness and creativity for engineering value. Quoting “My Oros is my ideals and values,” Jason remarks that the key to success lies in being able to effectively transfer this to every member of his team. He is in quest of building an ecosystem that promotes mutual collaboration and development, and a joint sharing of success.

 

Assessing Key Goals and Additions

 

AI Laith has an asset pool in excess of AED250m, making the management of a fleet of plants and equipment of this magnitude complex. According to Jason, the following are the key goals of the company as they move into 2022: 

• Improving Logistics and management of assets within the group for live, interactive dashboard systems that can track and share stock availability and locations.
• Creating succession planning across all key positions. The company has already embarked on this journey and performed well so far.
• Sorting out the document management system. As businesses continue to evolve, data becomes vital. AI Laith moved its business to the cloud in 2020 and has been implementing filing management systems since, but sorting and moving 27 years of data is challenging—making it a major focus for the company.

Additionally, Jason envisions several additions to the construction and events industry. He adds these are largely traditional industries, suggesting there are lots of changes to come. Being only at the beginning of the technology revolution in these sectors, the future holds several opportunities. Moreover, the rollout of AI, data-driven tech, IoT solutions, robotics, autonomous vehicles, drones, metaverses, and blockchain is going to disrupt and improve how traditional industries operate. “Being close to the action allows us to capitalize on these technologies as they evolve and I am somewhat excited by what's to come,” says Jason.

 

Vital Fundamentals of Navigating People and Life

 

Jason believes an individual can learn something from everyone and every situation, if focused on the right outcome. Elaborating on the same, he recounts a past incident where he encountered a technically efficient boss with an aggressive mind. Despite difficult situations, Jason chose to remain focused on learning everything about the technical side of the job and strived never to treat his peers similarly.

Focused on his goals, Jason absorbed the technical knowledge and became a better leader by learning how not to manage people. This has helped him navigate life, people, and situations, becoming the person he is today.

 

Optimistic perspective:

 

“I have a saying which I put up at all our offices around the globe. “Sometimes I win, sometimes I learn, but I never lose”. There is no such thing as failure. Life is a series of events from which you learn and the key is to learn from each event and adjust and move forward and avoid making the same mistake again. The only time we fail in our lives is when we choose not to learn from a negative event.”

 

Quote:

 

“Remaining calm helps navigate challenges and working through a systematic response or approach to understanding a problem is key.”

 

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