In selection interviews for project roles, I hear two statements that point in opposite directions. One candidate says, in these or similar words: “I’m a builder. Once it’s running, I’m gone.” Another says that what draws him is precisely the phase after completion, when the team needs to settle and the organisation has to become stable. Both candidates are strong. In the same project, they would simply need to join at very different moments.
Candidates differ widely in interest, experience and capability, and what often tips the balance is the phase an organisation or project is in. For an undertaking that spans decades, that is no detail. It determines how you organise its leadership.
A project that spans several leadership terms
The Energiehaven IJmond (IJmond Energy Port) shows the time horizon involved. It is an installation and maintenance port for offshore wind farms, on the site of the former Averijhaven on the seaward side of the IJmuiden locks: more than 15 hectares with a deep-sea quay of 580 metres. The consortium consists of the Province of North Holland, the Municipality of Velsen, Zeehaven IJmuiden and Port of Amsterdam. The ministries involved, Rijkswaterstaat and Tata Steel are partners.
The agreement for the research phase was signed in 2020. The design phase has been under way since 2023, an alternative quay design is being studied this year, and according to the province the port is scheduled to open in 2033 or 2034. From the port, 15 to 20 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity should be built by 2050. Add up the preparation and the years of use, and twenty years turns out to be a cautious estimate.
Nor does the port stand alone. In mid-September, the mayor of Velsen opened Ecowende’s onshore service base in Zeehaven IJmuiden, from which the Hollandse Kust West wind farm will be maintained for decades to come. Far offshore, the tender for the IJmuiden Ver Gamma-A and Gamma-B sites, together around 2 gigawatts, is expected to close in December, with power production from 2032. Anyone working on offshore wind in this region is working on something that will far outlast their own career.
Each phase attracts a different profile
With an undertaking like this, the reflex is understandable: find the person who can carry it. In the short term, that works. Yet every phase asks something different. Design and permitting need someone who keeps parties together while little is settled. During construction, the emphasis shifts to contracts, planning and contractors, and after completion to an organisation that must run steadily for years.
These are rarely the same people, and they need not be. The candidate who calls himself a builder knows exactly what he is coming to do and when he will leave again. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as the client knows it too. The risk arises when someone hired for construction is quietly expected to carry the operational phase as well, or when his departure after completion comes as a surprise.
For a project of this length, the brief is therefore different from how it is usually framed. You are looking for a series of leaders who can succeed one another without the programme having to start over. The question of who can do it now becomes less important than the question of who can do it in eight years, and whether that person is already part of the programme today.
The layer below the top
When that conversation takes place at all, it is usually about the top. Yet much of the continuity lies with the programme managers, heads of engineering and project leads who know the installation and the agreements made in the early years. When one of them leaves, knowledge disappears that is written down in no file. On 17 September I wrote that this layer in the IJmond is strongly tied to the region. For a project of this duration, that is an advantage, provided you involve and develop these people early. You are then already building the succession of tomorrow.
How candidates see it
Candidates look at long-running projects more soberly than clients sometimes assume. The questions I hear most often in interviews are hardly about the role itself. Who made this decision, and will that person still be here in five years? How stable is the client? Anyone giving up a good position for a project that will not be finished for years wants to be sure it will not change direction or ownership along the way.
If you are considering such a step yourself, ask those questions out loud. Ask yourself, too, in which phase you add the most. A builder who joins during design grows impatient. Someone whose strength lies in operations and stability, joining in the middle of construction, ends up in an environment that does not yet call for it. Being honest about your own phase is not a limitation. It makes the choice better for both sides.
Leadership belongs in the investment decision
For a supervisory board or an executive team deciding on such a project, this leads to a concrete task. When you take the investment decision, also lay down how leadership passes from phase to phase: which profile the next phase requires, and who is already involved with that in mind. That is a governance choice with the same horizon as the investment itself. Whoever only asks this question when someone announces their departure is, by definition, searching under time pressure.
Whoever hires a builder would do well to discuss, in the same conversation, who will come after him. That conversation is more honest for both parties than it seems, because the builder knew it all along.
In closing
I warmly invite directors and supervisory board members facing a long-term undertaking to talk about the leadership of the next phase. The same goes for professionals wondering in which phase of such a project they can contribute the most