Richard Keagy PE, LEED AP-Visionary Global Corporate Leaders to Watch in 2026

Growth in engineering can look straightforward on a balance sheet, yet the harder questions sit underneath it. Can people take ownership without fearing failure? Can an acquisition bring together businesses without losing the identity and trust that made each team successful? Can growth create greater opportunity without quietly creating greater complexity?

Richard Keagy, PE, LEED AP, has spent more than three decades working through these questions across engineering and consulting. His career has moved well beyond technical practice into operations, financial management, business development, acquisitions, strategic growth and the development of large, geographically dispersed teams. Each transition has given him a closer view of the decisions behind organisational performance and the human dynamics that can either accelerate or undermine them.

Today, as Executive Vice President at Enercon Services, Inc.—a 2700 employee full service engineering firm serving clients across the globe—Richard Keagy oversees financial performance, strategic initiatives, client relationships and growth across areas including data centres and related mission-critical engineering. His approach combines commercial discipline with a strong belief in empowering people, developing future leaders, and creating the conditions for teams to perform at their best. TradeFlock speaks with Richard about the experiences, decisions, and observations that have shaped how he thinks about growth, leadership, and building organisations that can sustain it.

Which experience most changed how you think about building a resilient engineering business?

A 35-year career in engineering consulting has brought its share of successes, but some of the most valuable lessons have come through failures and difficult periods. The 2008 economic downturn was one of those defining moments because it shifted my thinking from reactive survival to initiative-taking resilience. Market cycles can change quickly, and strategic planning has to account for volatility just as rigorously as it accounts for expansion.

Financial reserves and operational flexibility therefore cannot be afterthoughts. Stronger periods need to create enough room to protect core technical talent and organisational stability when demand contracts. Difficulties also need to be addressed early, with clear and honest communication rather than prolonged uncertainty. The bigger lesson was institutional. Resilience should not disappear when a crisis passes. Risk assessment, contingency modelling and contingency planning need to become permanent habits of the business.

How will generative AI change the business model of engineering firms?

Generative AI and advanced automation are going to compress the time required for routine engineering designs, baseline data analysis and standard report generation. That creates a difficult question for a profession that has traditionally measured value through hours billed. The traditional “hours billed” metric becomes a penalty for efficiency when technology can complete a task in seconds.

Clients will increasingly question premium day-rates for work that AI can perform almost instantly. Engineering firms therefore need to reconsider what they are actually selling. Fixed-price solutions, intellectual property and potentially guaranteed performance outcomes become more relevant when the value lies in expertise, judgement and the result rather than the number of hours spent producing it.

Firms that increase output velocity without changing how they package and price their expertise could find themselves in the unusual position of becoming more efficient while revenue pressure increases. AI is therefore not only a technology question for engineering. It is a business model question.

What did acquisitions teach you about the human side of integration?

Complex integrations taught me that cultural integration is not an operational exercise. It is a process of psychological adaptation. An acquired team can experience a genuine sense of loss when its previous organisational identity disappears, and financial or structural metrics rarely capture its impact on engagement.

Communication becomes critical because when leadership does not provide continuous clarity, the local rumour mill fills the gap. People begin wondering about job security, their place in the new organisation, and whether they have become second-class employees. Imposing the parent company’s processes wholesale creates another problem because the incoming organisation may have practices worth preserving, and the strongest people can feel alienated when those practices are dismissed.

I would approach integration differently today. Joint teams should help co-create the operating model, cultural audits should begin during due diligence, and the first 180 days should measure retention, psychological safety and cultural health alongside financial performance. Sustainable integration has to make people part of the change rather than subjects of it.

How do you decide what an engineering business should deliberately say no to?

Engineering firms can be tempted by large projects and emerging sectors that look impressive but consume specialised resources without creating repeatable revenue. Deciding what not to pursue, therefore, requires stronger discipline than simply evaluating the opportunity in front of you.

I set clear boundaries around project margins, liability exposure, and geographic limits, and stop opportunities outside those boundaries before committing significant bidding resources. New strategic directions should also pass through stages rather than receive a full investment immediately. A market study, the appointment of a key practice leader or a successful pilot can each provide evidence before the next commitment is made.

Opportunity cost is perhaps the most revealing test. If we put our top five Principal Engineers on a new venture, what critical clients or delivery schedules are we putting at risk? A great growth strategy in engineering is defined more by what the organisation chooses not to do than what it chooses to chase.

How do you create ownership across offices, functions and levels?

Creating genuine ownership requires a shift from command-and-control toward context-and-intent. People can become order-takers when they do not understand the broader situation or when they believe taking initiative could expose them to blame if something goes wrong.

Leadership should therefore begin with intent. Teams need to know the desired end state and the reason behind it rather than receiving instructions for every individual step. Shared context matters just as much. Cross-functional teams working toward the same delivery outcome can collaborate more naturally when information moves horizontally instead of remaining within functional or geographic boundaries.

Commercial transparency strengthens that ownership further. When people understand how their work affects profitability, project risk and client relationships, they begin treating the outcome more like their own business. Psychological safety completes the equation because autonomy only works when people have room to make decisions and learn from mistakes. Ownership is ultimately built on trust.

What did geographically dispersed teams teach you about developing future leaders?

Proximity does not equal alignment. A team can share an office and still lack clarity about why something matters, while people working across different locations can make strong decisions independently when they understand the broader objective and the outcomes expected of them.

Traditional office environments provide informal visibility through conversations and everyday interactions. Distributed teams remove much of that context, which means communication has to become more deliberate. Critical goals cannot depend on one announcement or one meeting, particularly when different time zones and communication styles are involved. Regular personalised updates, structured team discussions and written documentation help close those gaps.

Leadership development also changes in a distributed environment. Rather than prescribing every step, I have found it more effective to provide context, explain the business rationale and establish clear boundaries. People can make autonomous decisions when they understand not only what they are responsible for, but why the decision matters.

What tells you whether a growth opportunity genuinely fits the organisation?

I generally look at three dimensions before deciding whether an opportunity deserves serious consideration. Strategic alignment comes first. The opportunity should strengthen the long-term direction and compound existing competitive advantages rather than create a temporary revenue increase that pulls the organisation toward an entirely new identity.

Capability adjacency is the next test. I want to understand the operational, technical and human capabilities required and compare them with the strengths already present in the organisation. The strongest opportunities usually build on existing culture, brand trust, expertise or technology while requiring a manageable bridge into new capabilities.

Economic feasibility completes the picture. An opportunity can be strategically attractive and operationally possible but still fail to create sufficient economic value. Scalability and margin profile matter because growth should strengthen the underlying business rather than simply make it larger. Good opportunities extend what an organisation already knows how to do well.

Which career decision initially felt like the biggest professional risk?

Leaving a mid-size firm after 16 years to join the largest AE firm in the industry was one of the highest-stakes decisions of my career. Sixteen years builds deep relationships, equity, and institutional knowledge, so walking away from that familiarity and joining a much larger organisation meant accepting uncertainty around culture, operating systems, and a completely new internal network.

The decision became worthwhile because it opened the door to broader project scales, fresh challenges and a very different corporate vantage point. Subsequent experiences continued to add perspective, and I began to recognise how much professional growth can come from deliberately stepping outside an environment where you already understand the rules.

Risk, however, should not be confused with recklessness. A difficult move becomes meaningful when the potential learning, exposure and growth justify what you are leaving behind. Staying comfortable can protect what you already know, but sometimes the greater development comes from placing yourself somewhere that requires you to learn again.

Which financial signals help you act before project problems appear in the numbers?

Looking only at a profit and loss statement is like driving a car by looking solely in the rearview mirror. By the time financial distress appears in a monthly statement, a project’s margin may already have been eroded. Engineering leaders therefore need to read operational signals before they become financial losses.

Earned Value Management is one important indicator because the relationship between schedule variance and cost variance can reveal trouble early. A project that has spent 50% of its budget while completing only 30% of its physical deliverables should trigger an immediate technical review rather than waiting for the next billing cycle.

Utilisation can expose technical bottlenecks when senior engineers spend too much time on basic production work. Rising unbilled WIP can signal unresolved client issues or hidden budget problems. Zero change orders on a complex project can indicate “courtesy creep,” where teams are doing additional work without charging for it. Future staff-to-backlog ratios provide another warning, particularly when a profitable current month hides a steep drop in resource demand 90 days ahead. Reading these signals early gives leadership time to correct the problem while it is still manageable.