Scroll back to 1999, however, and Blaney was at the bottom of the HR ladder. “As many people in HR, I fell into it. I’d worked overseas for a number of years and came back to the UK and needed a job. I’d been working as a ski guide and mountain bike guide so I was very interested in sport and there was a job for David Lloyd Leisure as an assistant to the HR director,” she says.

The HR team was quite lean, which provided her with a fantastic opportunity to gain experience. As long as Blaney completed her admin duties, her boss was happy (and the rest of the team very grateful) for her to muck in wherever help was most required.

 

This meant, for example, that if a new gym or rackets club was opening, she would help the recruitment manager find the right people to staff it and also assist with their training. As a result, she quickly began to pick up a variety of HR skills and knowledge.

“I managed in a very short space of time to work within every single facet of HR,” Blaney remembers. “The company was happy to keep throwing work at me and it suddenly became so apparent to me that I was in the part of a business where you really feel you get to see the whole business.”

Alongside the tools of the HR trade, she also learned a valuable lesson that she has since carried with her throughout her career. At David Lloyd, the staff were absolutely core to the business in every way – while they comprised the biggest cost base, they also provided the company with its key differentiator.

 

 

And although the sector that the chain operates in is very different from Informa’s, Blaney says that the key similarity between both firms is the high value that they place on their personnel.

“I only wanted to work for companies who thought that employees were their greatest asset. And I only ever wanted to work for companies where everyone is passionate about what they do and, at Informa, people are passionate about what they do,” she adds.

Blaney is now in her thirteenth position at the organsation in just over a decade but, as it has grown and changed through acquisition, her role has changed and grown with it. As a result, she advises: “Always look for a company that is growing, because there are always opportunities for good people to stay in the business.”

 

One such opportunity that Blaney grabbed with both hands was to work in New York for two years. But the experience proved a culture shock – and not in the way that she’d expected. At the time, she was already responsible for both US and UK employees and so understood statutory requirements and employment law.

“The thing I wasn’t prepared for was the difference in values that employees put on things,” Blaney says. “The type of things to attract people in New York requires a different shopping list. And there’s a huge difference in terms of the perception of hierarchy – job titles hold such a huge level of importance and so does where you sit in the office. I totally underestimated how upset people would be by moving desk.”

As a result, after moving one team – for entirely practical reasons – from their traditional corner of the office to a different spot, she received an email asking if the change had been made because the company was unhappy with its performance.

Earlier this year, however, Blaney transferred from New York to Switzerland, where she now works at head office as group HR director. “That really demonstrates how important people are to our business. I would only work for a company that had HR sitting at the top because that screams volumes about the company,” she says.

 

But becoming group HR director has required a change of perspective as she no longer line-manages any of the HR teams that operate within the business units, each of which also has its own chief executive.

“My role is far more about coordinating and creating a forum for HR teams to share,” Blaney explains. “So, it’s not about dictating what they are doing. It’s important in my role that I really understand the business and where we can collaborate and get better economies of scale and where to let individual divisions have freedom.”

 

Although she may no longer have day-to-day responsibilities for operational HR, meanwhile, she does try to keep in touch by visiting different HR operations around the world and sitting on numerous communications and remuneration committees in a consultative capacity.

“The huge difference to me is, when I worked in divisions, I had a lot more power. Because of working very closely with a single CEO, we would collectively agree on initiatives to be rolled out across divisions and be able to run with those,” Blaney says.

 

Working at group level, however, means that she is not as close to the company’s individual products. Moreover, because the portfolio has become more diverse, “some initiatives work in some areas and not in others. So you need to be more sensitive to the workings of individual businesses,” she says.

 

Because the business is involved in publishing, conferencing and events, which each have very different requirements and deadlines to work to though, it is important to be seen not to impose blanket changes from above.

 

But where she can see the merit of standardising – by introducing a single benefits platform in the UK, for example – she benefits from being able to take a bird’s eye view in order to capitalise on opportunities. “It’s about ensuring best practices are shared but not forced,” Blaney concludes.

 

 

Who do you admire most and why?
My first boss in HR who taught me a lot about getting close to the business and about talking to the business and making sure you think about the customer. Also Lindsey Roberts, a divisional CEO at Informa, who always identified good people and gave them opportunities to grow because she knew thatm if you had good people, then they would need stretching.

What’s your most hated buzzword?
Blue sky thinking.

What the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Always think about your customer. Always think about what you’re trying to achieve.

How do you relax?
Obviously with my family – I have a four- and a three-year old. But I’m actually quite passionate about my running and try to get out once a week and run seven miles.