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The Place Director of the Future

Katie Stewart, Executive Director for Environment at the City of London Corporation, has taken over the role of ADEPT President for the forthcoming year.

In her inaugural address at the ADEPT Spring Conference and President’s Awards on the 13^th May 2026, Katie outlined her Presidential theme for the year ahead: the Place Director of the future. 

The theme reflects the rapidly changing role of place leaders and the need for local government to continue evolving in response to political, technological, environmental and societal change.

Building on the foundations laid during ADEPT’s 140th anniversary year and following Angela Jones’ Presidential theme of making the case for people and place, Katie’s priorities will focus on the ways in which place directors can lead confidently through uncertainty, support the next generation of leaders and strengthen the resilience and adaptability of the sector.

In summary, her priorities target three key areas:

1. Leadership and succession – developing and supporting the next generation of place leaders.
2. Skills and resilience – building the capability, confidence and adaptability that our current place leaders need for a rapidly changing world.
3. Community and support – strengthening collaboration, peer networks and opportunities for professional support across the sector.

Further information on each of the priorities is detailed below:

• Leadership and succession – the role of the place director is evolving rapidly and the sector must ensure future leaders are equipped to succeed. This includes strengthening leadership development, succession planning and diversity across the profession, while creating clearer pathways for talented people to progress into senior roles. Katie will build on ADEPT’s existing work around leadership development, recruitment, digital skills and inclusion to help ensure the profession reflects the communities it serves and continues to evolve to be fit for the future.

• Skills and resilience – today’s place leaders are operating in increasingly complex environments, balancing political change, financial pressures, technological advancement and growing public expectations. Katie’s focus will include helping place directors and their teams develop the skills needed for modern leadership, including emotional intelligence, resilience, judgement and the ability to navigate uncertainty. It will also explore how data, digital innovation and artificial intelligence can support better decision making and more effective public services.

• Community and support – In her Presidential year, Katie wants to strengthen the sense of community at the heart of ADEPT, recognising the increasing pressures facing place leaders across the country. 

She intends to continue to champion open, honest and practical conversations across the sector, creating space for members to share experiences, learn from one another and support each other through change. Strengthening peer networks and collaboration will be central to helping place directors lead successfully in increasingly demanding roles.

Katie also reflected on the significance of leading ADEPT during its 140th anniversary year, highlighting the importance of preparing both the organisation and the wider profession for the future.

Speaking about her theme, Katie said the pace of change facing local government means place leadership must continue to evolve: 

“Change is no longer something we respond to. It is the environment we work in every single day. It is the job.”

Katie’s full speech transcript from the conference is below:

Katie Stewart, President of ADEPT - inaugural speech

The speech below was given at the ADEPT Spring Conference on 13th May 2026

Good evening everyone. Can I just start by saying what a privilege it is to stand here tonight as your incoming President.

First and foremost, I’d like to give my sincere thanks and gratitude to Angela. Your leadership over the past year has been exceptional. Your theme of Making the Case for People and Place has not only resonated, it has genuinely shaped the conversation across our sector. 

You have reminded us, consistently and powerfully, that place does not exist without people and that everything we do must ultimately serve our communities. Taking up the baton from you is both an honour and, I will admit, a responsibility I feel deeply.

And for those of you who don’t know – it’s also a bit of a surprise… up until two months ago, I wasn’t meant to be on this stage tonight. Our first VP, Andrew Cooke, would have been here tonight, but went and got a Chief Executive role – and so my time has come earlier than expected…and I think I may have lucked out.

The world around us is changing at a pace and scale I don’t think any of us could have ever anticipated – globally, nationally and locally. In fact, that’s exactly what want to talk about this evening…building on the work done before us and looking ahead to what groundwork we can lay for those who step into our roles in the future.

In our 140^th year as a professional association, I have been reflecting on what comes next for ADEPT and for all of us as place leaders. We are operating in a world that is changing faster than at any point I can remember.

Local government reorganisation, financial pressures, political change, technological advancement, climate challenges. All of this is happening at once. And that on top of a very big and heavily scrutinised day job….

Change is no longer something we respond to. It is the environment we work in every single day.  It IS the job.

And so I’d like to announce that my theme for the year ahead is:

The Place Director of the Future.

Because the reality is this: this role that we do today is not the same role as it was ten or even five years ago. And it will not be the same role in five years’ time. Today’s place director is more visible, more accountable and frankly, more stretched than ever before.

We are leaders, negotiators, analysts, peacekeepers, coaches and firefighters - and often all at once.  And we may serve politicians, but let’s be honest – we have all had to become a little bit of a politician ourselves as well. 

We are navigating political landscapes that are more complex and more fluid than ever before. 

We are working with communities in new ways, with ever-increasing expectations, with more channels to engage with us – and occasionally to shout at us – with more diverse needs and applying ever greater scrutiny.

We are managing risk in a way that has fundamentally shifted. Ten or fifteen years ago, many would have said the level of risk we now carry would be unsustainable. 

Today, we balance that risk, day in, day out.

But with the scale and the pace of change we are seeing, and within a national and local government context where all bets are off in terms of planning and predictions – I firmly believe that there is a very significant opportunity for us as place directors in our own right, and across ADEPT as an association, to shape the way the world around us works. 

So the question we need to ask ourselves is not just how we keep up. It is how we lead.

Like Angela, I want to ground this year and my presidential priorities in big ambition, but tangible outcomes – after all, I am speaking to a room full of place directors who like to get stuff done…  and I so propose three clear areas of focus.

First, leadership and succession. What does a great place director look like for the future?

How do we identify, develop and support the next generation of leaders?

This is not just about capability, but diversity.

It is about ensuring our profession reflects the communities we serve. And it is about creating clear pathways so that talented and ambitious people can step into these roles with confidence. Because succession is not concerned with filling roles. It is about setting the next generation up to succeed.

Within that, and building on the work we have done on digital training, EDI, Gen Z recruitment and leadership development with a host of exceptional sector partners, many of whom I can see here with us this evening.

Let’s go further by addressing and removing more of those barriers that we see getting in the way of talented and energetic people waiting in the wings, waiting to step up and serve their communities.

Let’s bring them in and give them their seat at the table, within our authorities and here at ADEPT. Let’s learn from their experience and their skills and help them develop careers that truly make a difference in people’s lives.

Second area of focus….building and honing the skills and capacity for a changing world. The role is evolving and so must the skillset.

Yes, that includes navigating political environments. But it is also about emotional intelligence,  judgement and perhaps most importantly, sheer resilience. It sounds like a huge ask, but it’s not impossible. In fact I’m looking at dozens of exceptional examples right now.

It is about knowing what you can control and what you cannot. It is about leading teams through uncertainty and keeping them motivated even when the pressures are intense.

And increasingly, it is about understanding how we use data and technology to make better decisions for our places.

The digital transformation of our society and artificial intelligence are changing how we understand and serve our places. We need to not only react to how those opportunities will change the communities we serve, but anticipate and get ahead of how this latest revolution can help us to better provide public services.

Third, and finally, community and support…or more to the point…camaraderie. Because none of us does this alone.

One of the most powerful things about ADEPT is the space it creates and the opportunities it presents to share experiences. Where you can be honest, where you can share challenges and where you can learn from people who truly understand the job.

That sense of community has never been more important. We need to strengthen it. We need to make it easier for people to connect and to support each other, in and amongst our relentless diaries. Because this is a demanding role and the strength of our network is one of our greatest assets.

As you all know my Presidential year sits within an important moment in the history of ADEPT. We are celebrating 140 years of this organisation. One hundred and forty years of place leadership.

When you look back, what is striking is not just how much has changed, but also what has remained constant.

A commitment to public service.

A commitment to communities.

A commitment to making places better.

As we look forward, we know that the pace of change is accelerating. We need to acknowledge and celebrate what ADEPT has been for the last 140 years, whilst turning our attention to what it needs to be for the next 140.

So what am I asking from all of you this year? Be open. Be honest. Be ambitious.

Use ADEPT as it is meant to be used. As a space to challenge, support and grow. Have the difficult conversations. Shout about what is working and what is not. And help us define, together, what the place director of the future really looks like. Because if we get that right, everything else follows.

I am hugely excited for the year ahead. Excited about the conversations we will have and the work we’ll do. Excited about the people we will support.

And excited about what we can achieve together.

Angela, thank you again for everything you have done this year, and to all of you, thank you for the work you do every day. It really matters.

We face tough times ahead, but I can’t imagine a more exciting seat in the house than the one I’ve taken this evening. Nor can I imagine a more talented and ambitious group of professionals with whom to be on this adventure with.

I look forward to working with you. Thank you.