Kier confirms appointment of Nicola Peake

After leaving her role as managing director of the environmental division at services company May Gurney in December 2011 (see letsrecycle.com story), Ms Peake was appointed managing director of Kiers environmental services division on February 6. In this role she will report to Kier Services managing director, Claudio Veritiero.

Commenting on the appointment, Mr Veritiero said: I am delighted to welcome Nicola to Kier and am certain that her experience and track record of delivering profitable growth will play a major part in taking our environmental business to the next level.

Kier Group plc is a Bedfordshire-based construction, services and property group active in building and civil engineering, support services, housebuilding and land development.

The company has a number of waste and recycling contracts and in 2010 it acquired Pure Recycling, which provided it with a materials recycling facility at Ettington in Warwickshire (see letsrecycle.com story).

It is understood that Ms Peake will be responsible for this part of the business in her new role, despite claiming in the past that sorting materials at the kerbside rather than in a MRF is both better value and better for the environment (see letsrecycle.com story).

Growth

Ms Peakes new responsibilities at Kier include: driving the sustainable growth of the business through the development of strategic client relationships; developing collection, maintenance and processing services; and ensuring the business meets the commercial demands of its client base.

Ms Peake said: I am delighted to be joining such a robust business, which has great people, and the appetite to maximise opportunities in an exciting, and ever developing market.

Contracts

During her four years at May Gurney, Ms Peake helped lead the the business profitable growth from 10 million to over 100 million in annual revenues. Her experience in building the environmental arm of the company is understood to have been attractive to Kier, which hopes to grow the environmental services side of its business.

Kier has a number of existing contracts in the waste sector. In June 2011 Kier was awarded a 90 million contract by the London borough of Waltham Forest to carry out waste and recycling collections (see letsrecycle.com story).

Previous to this Kier won a seven-year contract with East Northamptonshire council in March 2011 (see letsrecycle.com story) but lost out on the 210 million Edinburgh deal to rivals Enterprise, which was later terminated (see letsrecycle.com story).