Linda Walmsley is a professional interviewer and business owner of UK executive and management recruitment firm, Walmsley Wilkinson. During 2026 she continues a series of interviews with Business Leaders who have innovated within their field of expertise and have warranted the description of being an inspiring leader.
Profile
Graeme joined the Army as an engineering apprentice in 1993 and graduated as an Avionics Engineer supporting the Army’s Lynx and Apache Attack Helicopters. Leaving the Army in 2005 he moved into the Facilities Management sector with engineering and project management roles supporting British Telecom before being selected for the prestigious Carillion Leadership Programme, aimed at developing the future business leaders. On successful graduation of this two year programme, he undertook account director roles with Carillion’s customers in the defence and retail banking sector before becoming Operations director and latterly Managing Director of PHS Compliance. In late 2019 Graeme joined ISS as the Projects Director on the flagship Barclays Bank contract running capital works and construction projects across the UK, Europe and Middle East.
For the past 5 years he has been the CEO of McIntyre Compliance Services, originally a family run business now in Private Equity ownership, headquartered in Peterborough delivering national fire and electrical compliance services to social housing providers and councils across England. His task has been to professionalise and develop a successful family business into a foundation block for future buy and build investment.
Interview
What were your career aspirations when you were younger?
They were very simple really, to the point that I frustrated my parents. When I was 14 or 15, I joined the Air Cadets where I discovered I didn’t really like the RAF and much preferred the Army side of training. So, then my only ambition was to join the Army and drive a tank or be in the infantry, which at the time would have meant joining the Sherwood Foresters (the Nottingham and Derbyshire Regiment). I was happy to do either. My Mum, though, wasn’t happy about my career choice; she wanted me to be an Accountant. However, she said that if I was determined to go down this route I needed to ensure I also got a trade. My Dad had a trade, so it seemed the logical step to take. When I went to the careers office, I took the test to join the army. Following completion of which you get issued a list of job options based on your results. One of these was fixing helicopters – not my original plan, but this ended up being my first proper job.
What was your first job?
Before this though, I had a Saturday job working at KFC. They had just opened in my local town, so I applied and started my first paid work wiping down tables. It was a solid grounding to the world of work.
Who or what has inspired you in your life and career?
As well as my inspiring parents, I had a set of grandparents from the wartime generation. Grandad was very stoic, a man’s man. He, along with my Grandma inspired me to do the right thing, be honest and work hard. Outside of my family, both people and organisations have inspired me.
I joined the Army as a member of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers as I was very inspired by that service piece, what it looked like, what it felt like, being part of something much bigger and achieving more than a single person could ever do.
When I left the Army, I benefitted from having an exceptionally inspirational boss in my first commercial role. The then Commercial Director at Monteray thankfully saw something in me, and following this my Director at Carillion encouraged me to join the Carillion management programme and sponsored me through it. Both people put their faith and trust in me. I think it would be called having sliding door moments now. I’ve been fortunate to have two such significant points in my career with two senior people giving me the opportunity to develop. I remain extremely grateful to them.
What life lessons would you share with others?
As I get a little older now, and I certainly didn’t recognise this earlier in my career, I think I would share the lesson of not being so fixated on the destination that you don’t value what you’re doing whilst getting there. If you do what I did and focus on achieving the next thing and then the next thing, you can miss out on enjoying the here and now.
When you are part of a very high performing team they don’t last for ever, generally because everyone in your peer group is a high performer and ambitious for further opportunities. Colleagues quickly move on because of their ability to do so. So, when you’re in that environment, I would recommend that you recognise it and celebrate it there and then.
What five words best describe you?
This is a tough question because self-appreciation is something I don’t do that well. I don’t celebrate my own success; I am however good at celebrating the team’s success. So, putting aside the classic answers of being driven, resilient etc, I believe I am credible, which is important for every aspect of my life and in business helps me forge and maintain key relationships. I’m generally quite open, and I would like to believe I am someone with high integrity. I know that’s only three words but the best words to describe me as a person are associated with being a Husband and a Father – these roles being the most important of my life. Family is incredibly important to me.
Do you have a favourite saying or quote?
I have a couple of favourite sayings but my favourite one, and it’s a flight safety one that we used in my aviation days is, ‘Never assume always check’. Assume – makes an ass out of you and me. I love that quote and it’s a quote that’s on lots of flight safety posters. It’s stood me well through all sorts of businesses. Even recently it helped the business to avoid making a huge faux pas. You can’t assume everybody in the business is checking to make sure that we are avoiding potentially serious issues. Dip checking is really important in any business regardless of sector.
Which technologies excite you the most, and why?
I get excited about all technology. The technology that I’m particularly interested in, and excited about is the technology that provides immediate contact and collaboration eg how everyone now uses Teams, or using an electronic notepad, to quickly share information as required with virtually no delay. I’ve recently started using Microsoft Copilot and have quickly seen the benefits in helping to create business objectives. What it does particularly well is combine the information already held within our systems with the best relevant information available online. Of course, it never removes the need to check/ review and validate the output, but it can give you a very strong starting point — often the first 50% of the work.
How should the Human Resources function operate within any business?
Having witnessed good HR and not so good HR over the years, in my view, I think good HR, the best I’ve ever seen, is where it’s an important, integrated part of the business. It’s embedded in the decision-making process with effective SLT partnering. HR is a valuable source of expert advice on how best to support and communicate to the entire employee base.
What are your views on attracting talent and retaining people?
I recognise that I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to benefit from being part of two leadership programmes, the first of which whilst I was in the Army. As a CEO it is critical to maintain a focus on attracting good people as otherwise the business will stagnate; talented people are the life blood of any business. It’s an essential aspect of my role. At MCS we have a thorough recruitment and on-boarding process for all employees and just as I was given the opportunity in my earlier career to grow and develop, I now make sure this opportunity is offered to my own team. It’s important to me to give back to earlier career individuals. For example, I’m currently mentoring a couple of high potential people in the business. They of course need to deliver on their day job but in addition are being challenged further and are given the opportunity to be involved in things outside of their current remit. One of the team is looking at how you build the annual budget which gives them a completely different level of commercial understanding. It’s important we take them on a journey to develop their skills and abilities. When they leave the business, which potentially they will at some point, as MCS is not big enough yet to satisfy every employee’s ambition, they will have gained valuable experience, added value within their roles with us and have enjoyed their time here. Who knows they may be a CEO themselves one day.
Has workplace diversity and inclusion now become embedded at MCS or is there still much more to do?
Unfortunately, our business still operates in a male dominated environment. If you look at the number of electricians or fire engineers we have, I believe we are unlikely to get to an equal gender split in those areas at any point soon. However, I would say the reverse for those roles in the office. Most of our planners are female, many of our managers in that area are female, so the gender split is better in the office, but it remains an incredibly hard thing to achieve. We do have a female electrical apprentice who is doing extremely well, and we will work hard to try and ensure she is the first of many. We continue to struggle to get people to be interested in the trades across the whole spectrum of diversity. In summary, it’s constant work in progress and remains high on the business agenda.
What legislation would you amend or implement to support UK business?
From an MCS perspective, the almost overnight changes to National Insurance effectively had the same impact as giving every employee a 3% salary increase — something we would have found incredibly difficult to achieve under normal circumstances. It has undoubtedly influenced our hiring decisions, because as an employer you are now committing to a significantly different cost structure.
Of course, this is not something affecting only MCS; it is impacting a wide range of businesses, and no doubt hitting some organisations even harder than ours as we don’t have that many people on a National Minimum Wage. Unlike when I first started working, many roles now paid at National Minimum Wage were never originally intended to provide a long-term standard of living, such as enabling someone to buy a house, it was a stepping stone to something else. These jobs were designed as entry-level opportunities to help people get onto the career ladder, and the system worked because those roles provided valuable experience that was recognised by future employers. My concern is that the recent changes may lead to fewer of these entry-level roles existing in the marketplace at all, which could create a significant barrier for people trying to take their first steps into employment and build their careers.
What advice would you give to any individual to any individual who is keen to develop a career in business?
Firstly, recognise that to become really good takes hard work lots of listening and experience. Despite all of the books and courses they cannot help you with what generally is the most important aspects of business, always make time for people, they are your greatest asset, they are also the ones who will ensure that the business is successful and when you have your biggest challenges these people will step up and support. Nurture and celebrate good teams at every opportunity.
In your opinion what elements are key to being a successful CEO?
I think one of the biggest things for me is articulating the company’s vision and getting people to buy into that. You’re almost a storyteller for every stakeholder in the business. You’re a storyteller for the investor, the rest of the board members, the planners in the office, the electricians in the field, everyone inside and outside the business. You’ve got to be able do this and to do that you’ve got to be the most positive person in the room and that’s not always easy, so you also have to be incredibly resilient. Working in this organisation over the last five years, with all the economic challenges out there, COVID and so on combined with changing customer demands – resilience is really key. As a CEO, if you were to get over excited about everything that landed on your desk, you would be dealing with huge peaks and troughs every day.
What is your biggest career highlight or achievement to date?
I’m fortunate to have several career highlights. In the Army, I remember being told that we need to go to Iraq and get there very quickly. As a result, it was my role to deploy 12 aircraft and a team of 24 technicians in a very tight timeframe. It was high stakes and high pressure. I was 28 at the time and looking back this was a key learning period for me in how to handle pressure and work together as a team to achieve a significant outcome.
Another highlight that stands out is that whilst working at ISS, I was project managing a global project for Barclays throughout COVID-19. We had jobs in Milan, Dubai and Luxembourg all on the go and we also had to complete a full refurbishment of their Canary Wharf offices at One Churchill Place. We achieved all this with PM’s sat in their own home locations whilst I was working from my home office in Derby. We got a significant amount of work completed successfully and I’m very proud of that.
More recent achievements include turning MCS from being a regional player which delivered very average customer service to the point that we’ve now retained all our contracts, we’ve re-bid all of these in the last 5 years and are recognised for providing excellent customer service. We’re in a position now where we’re pushing to grow the business. This is a major career highlight as we have worked as a team to achieve the readiness to grow and further improve the business.
How do you like to spend your time outside of work?
I’ve recently become a cricket widower as my wife has joined the ladies cricket team. It’s fortunate that I really love cricket and enjoy the experience of watching it with a chilled glass of Prosecco. This means that I also get to drive our camper van to various locations. We’ve recently bought a more modern camper van because as a family, we like to get out as much as possible.
What’s next for you and McIntyre Compliance Services?
Our MCS business is now set to grow, it’s been private equity owned for the last 5 years. We’ve been on a huge transformation journey, and that journey hasn’t always been the easiest. The investment is now starting to pay off, and I’m pleased to say that significant foundational work has been completed. This has enabled positive change and strong foundations from which to continue to build on. The business is now ready for additional investment, so we can expand further becoming a truly national organisation whilst continuing to do a really great job for our social housing customers.
