2023 Ones to Watch Industry Leaders: Maximilian Blum, Holt Construction

Number of years in CURRENT position: 1

3 skills that you use every day in your position:

Scheduling/coordination, interpersonal communication, adaptive reacting.

Best book, podcast, or app for aspiring leaders: 

How to win friends and influence people.

Best advice for new leaders in 10 words or less:

Trust your gut and make strategic incremental changes.

What recent project, transaction or accomplishment are you most proud of? United Airlines C1 Club. I helped usher this job from the pre-construction phase into construction. Selecting the right subs for the full scope of the project while delivering a value-based budget, reducing costs where possible and still maintaining the client’s goals for the project design was a difficult and time consuming effort. The work we put into planning the project with the right trade partners up front has paid dividends in the effective construction on site, maintaining or bettering our schedule and budgetary goals for the project.

What was one of your biggest challenges as a leader and how did you overcome it? Overcoming the various personalities involved in a larger scale project. By finding common ground with the different types of people, learning their end goals and communication styles and adapting to those helps make day-to-day operations far easier and more effective. Pushing back against someone that requests information that doesn’t seem pertinent only serves to make a contentious relationship. In reality, we all serve a purpose to the project, whether it’s understood entirely or not, but we have to deal with each other and effectively manage the project as a team, so harmony and respectful progress are critical to the project success.