Ripple Effect: Leadership Interview Series

Effective leadership is the foundation of a thriving organization as it shapes its direction and ensures its growth – this is the premise behind our 2024 Leadership Interview Series: Ripple Effect. This series was created to gain insights from Hexagon US Federal’s newly realigned Senior Leadership Team. From advice on how to achieve greater business success to inspiring others to step into their own leadership capacity, we hope the advice found throughout this series leaves a lasting impact like the ripple emanating from a skipping stone.

In the latest installment of Ripple Effect, we talked to Technical Director, Steve du Plessis, who shared insights on remaining competitive in an innovative age, embracing change, empowering employees, and maintaining strategic foresight as both fresh and seasoned leaders.

What is your role at HexFed?

Technical Director

What is something most people don’t know about you?

One of my hobbies is chainsaw carving and my specialties are giraffes and hippos.

How have you seen HexFed make its values a reality?

My favorite core value is Innovation, and you don't need to look far to see examples of our innovation. Right now, our team is looking at ways to link our Asset Management solution into the Governments TAK ecosystem. We are also enhancing our Augmented Reality solution to work over mesh radios; we are trying to convince defense customers to use our autonomous vehicles to deliver meals and tools all over their bases. We enable our customer to access and use all their favorite Google apps from a private and secure domain and we've created a new solution that combines our Anti-Jam antennas with our geospatial software.

Participation in government exercise provides a venue to develop these requirements and test them in operationally relevant environments.

What is the biggest challenge facing leaders today?

One of the many challenges we face is the ever-accelerating evolution of technology, not only in what we sell but the systems that keep the business running. The relentless pace at which advancements occur, necessitates constant adaptation to remain competitive. In the case of Hexagon US Federal we have the added challenge of making our commercial innovations relevant to the US Government and DoD. Often this requires pairing capabilities in new and innovative ways and then making it work within government frameworks to include cybersecurity to protect sensitive data and maintain consumer trust.

Within the organization we need to cultivate environments conducive to embracing change and empowering employees to harness technological tools effectively. A good example of this is our adoption of Rohan that uses a bespoke Large Language Model to help with proposal writing. As leaders we need strategic foresight, flexibility, and a willingness to embrace innovation for sustainable growth.

Thank you @Steve du Plessis for participating in the Ripple Effect: Leadership Interview series! Stay tuned for future articles featuring other members of the Hexagon US Federal Senior Leadership Team.