Over two decades, Ingrid Cronin-Knight worked across technology companies such as Chorus, Spark Digital and MYOB, and garnered awards, including New Zealand IT manager of the year.
Four years ago, Ingrid joined Waste Management (WM), New Zealand’s largest materials recovery, recycling, and waste management provider, as chief growth and sustainability officer. “My title means I take ownership of our growth outcomes, guiding both WM’s strategic direction and our sustainability initiatives,” says Ingrid. “Sustainability is at the heart of what we do, and so there is a natural fit with the sustainability programme being with the strategy.”
It is a shift from working in technology companies to the circular economy, where the emphasis is on giving materials and products a second life. It is also linked to her earlier academic focus. "My background in product design taught me to consider the full lifecycle of materials, ensuring what goes into a product can ultimately be recovered and reused.”
WM collects over one million tonnes of waste and recycles over 200,000 tonnes; its collection side of the business is growing, says Ingrid.“Instead of a single truck going to one location, we operate multiple vehicle types collecting different waste streams for specialised processing. As the country's largest composter, we transform your food and green waste into valuable compost products.”
Moving to a Different Industry: Similarities and Divergences
Ingrid was country manager/head of ANZ sales at MYOB when she joined WM. "WM attracted me with its innovative culture and unique governance structure. We've established strategic joint ventures with our largest competitor and various councils.”
WM is really a big B2B (business-to-business) provider, she explains. “If you think about waste as a subscription revenue, we have a lot of repeat business that we have to do every week. The waste industry operates differently than software, where you write code once and deploy it. Here, we coordinate people and trucks to service bins reliably every day. Despite these differences, I've applied many customer management principles from my IT background to improve our operations."
She says the company had surveyed builders, with building and construction comprising the bulk of WM’s business. "When we proposed automatically monitoring skip bins and dispatching trucks based on fill levels, they weren't interested. What they actually wanted was a simple booking system for when they determined bins were full. This reinforces that understanding customer needs sometimes leads to simpler solutions than advanced technology might suggest."
So what worked for her as she shifted industries?
“I got really clear about what my skill set was and I think I am an expert on B2B growth. You can apply that to sales, marketing, to growth strategies across different companies and businesses,” says Ingrid. “Take a step back, and look at how you would more broadly define your skill set rather than in your industry or company.”
In her case, she asks: “In what kind of environment am I a really good leader? How do I excel in an area where I am given a remit to make a difference?”
Ongoing education plays a crucial role in her professional growth. “Over my career, I have put a lot of effort into learning,” says Ingrid, who has an MBA from the Henley School Business in the UK, and a graduate certificate on sustainability. She recently completed a paper on ‘Artificial Intelligence: Business Strategies and Applications’ at the UC Berkeley Executive Education.
Ingrid is active in the Waste & Recycling Industry Forum (WRIF) and is an adviser to Repair Café Aotearoa New Zealand.The latter organises Repair Cafés across the country. "People genuinely value restoring the mana of their possessions through repair,” she says of the regular free pop-up events run by volunteers.
The group also supports the Right to Repair Bill currently in Parliament. The Bill aims to help the public by requiring manufacturers to provide repair parts, information, and tools for products, thereby promoting longer product use, and reducing waste going to landfills.
She notes how this thinking transcends to areas of the industry. She cites one company, Levela, which “deconstructs buildings instead of demolishing them, recovering valuable timber and materials. This process honours the mana [respect for history ] of the structure rather than discarding it."
Government can help scale the circular economy through policies and regulations. “Incentives, subsidies, and extended producer responsibility schemes can encourage recycling and reduce waste,” she wrote recently in WasteMINZ.
For people wanting to embrace the circular economy, “it doesn’t really matter where you start, start somewhere and you will learn,” says Ingrid.
“Learning usually involves defining a problem's scope and boundaries, conducting some analysis, reviewing the choices and then discussing learnings and taking action… It's much easier to work collaboratively and constructively where there is good will and intent. Leave the naysayers and negative energy to challenge the findings. If it makes good commercial sense, you can usually find there are a range of improvements that can be made just by looking at procurement and problems differently.”
Divina Paredes is a New Zealand-based writer interested in #ICTTrends #Leadership #Tech4Good #DigitalWorkplace #Data4Good #Sustainability #CivilSociety #SpecialNeedsCommunity #SocialEnterprises
