Impact Story – Kealy Herman
The winners of last year’s IMAGINE Awards have been driving clients towards a planet-positive future with their unique digital solution. In this Impact Story, Kealy Herman tells us how the winning team launched Net Zero Catalyst with the support of the Lovinklaan Foundation.
Kealy Herman, Global Technical Director of Net Zero Strategy at Arcadis, joined the business in 2022. What’s more, she says she heard about Lovinklaan during her interview process: “In fact, it was part of my decision to join the business! I love that we have an employee-led foundation that invests in Arcadians and communities around the world.”
Read on to find out how our IMAGINE Awards program enabled the development of new skills, fostered international relationships, and created a tool that empowers Arcadians to deliver exceptional work to clients.
How did winning the IMAGINE Awards help turn the team’s idea into reality?
The IMAGINE Awards have accelerated the trajectory of Sustainability Advisory’s Net Zero Strategy proposition. Our submission to the IMAGINE Awards was successful, which funded the development of a standardized PowerBI dashboard for an Excel-based model that the Netherlands team built and has been improving on since 2019. This alone was exciting, but it didn’t end there! Our IMAGINE Award submission raised the profile of the tool and the Net Zero Strategy work we were doing with clients among internal audiences, especially the Resilience Tech Team, who builds low-code and full-stack software tools to drive digital transformation.
They came to us not long after winning and posed the idea of fully digitizing the Excel-based tool, creating a SaaS offering to enhance our Net Zero Strategy project delivery approach. We worked with the Resilience Innovation Manager, Roni Deitz, and the Resilience Tech Director, Muthu Vaidhianathan, to test the idea and then secure additional funding. I suddenly became a Product Manager and have loved every minute of my time working with our full-stack development and UX design team in India.
In April 2024, just a year after winning the IMAGINE Award, we formally announced the details of Net Zero Catalyst, our decarbonization strategy SaaS solution. It’s incredible to see how we have brought a global team of decarbonization strategy experts together with our Tech Team to create a unique digital solution that will delight our clients.
What advice would you give to those considering participating in our programs?
Stop thinking about it and jump in! My advice is to focus on solving key client challenges, collaborate across business units and countries, and tell a compelling story about the potential impact of your idea. Also, look at past winners and see what they have in common. That will help you put together a winning pitch.
If you have an innovative idea, you should submit it to the IMAGINE Awards, because you never know who might see it and want to join you to bring your idea to life. If you don’t have an idea that fits with the IMAGINE Awards, but still want to get involved, Lovinklaan has many other great programs that will advance your career, build connections with fellow talented Arcadians, and provide unique and memorable experiences.
How do you see the impact of these programs extending beyond individual employees and benefiting the overall Arcadis community?
For me, participating in Lovinklaan’s IMAGINE Awards program has been a journey of learning new skills, building international relationships, and most importantly, creating a tool that will help Arcadians deliver exceptional work to our clients. Net Zero Catalyst has helped standardize how we deliver Net Zero Strategy projects globally. This streamlines our work and makes us more efficient, while enhancing client experience.
Want to know more about our IMAGINE Awards program? Click here.
