Ian Trudeau on Scaling Technical Excellence Across Entuitive
“When Entuitive was smaller, knowledge sharing happened quite naturally. If you needed help, you could simply turn to the person beside you and ask a question.”
Fifteen years and five offices later, that desk is sometimes a lot farther away, and Ian Trudeau’s new job is to close the distance.
Technical excellence is central to Entuitive's One Company culture. By connecting our people through shared knowledge, expertise, and resources, we create consistency across disciplines and offices while delivering high-quality solutions for our clients.
As Entuitive continues to grow, strengthening that foundation remains a key priority. To support this commitment, Ian has been promoted to Director of Technical Excellence, a newly created role focused on developing the frameworks, tools, and processes that will help our teams continue delivering exceptional outcomes for clients. Ian has contributed to Entuitive’s evolution over nearly 15 years with the firm. In his new role, he will work closely with teams across the business to advance technical excellence, accelerate knowledge sharing, support professional development, and ensure our people have the resources they need to do their best work. We recently sat down with Ian to learn more about what inspired the creation of the role, what technical excellence means to him, and how emerging technologies like AI will shape the future of engineering at Entuitive.
ENtuitive: What inspired the creation of the Director of Technical Excellence role?
As we continue to grow, we recognize the need to create a framework that supports growth from a technical perspective. When Entuitive was smaller, knowledge sharing happened quite naturally. If you needed help, you could simply turn to the person beside you and ask a question.
Today, we're a much larger organization, so we need systems and processes that help us work consistently across disciplines and offices. This role is about creating that framework, improving efficiency, and ensuring we continue delivering the technical excellence our clients expect as we scale.
We've also spent several years discussing technical excellence at the leadership level. While we've made significant investments in areas like project management and financial management, we wanted to ensure we maintained the same focus on the technical work that is at the heart of what we do.
EN: What does technical excellence mean to you?
Technical excellence is about enabling people to do their best work. That means providing the right tools, training, quality assurance and quality control processes, and creating a culture of continuous improvement.
What that looks like can vary between disciplines and career stages, but the goal is the same: giving teams the support to focus on solving complex problems and creating value for project partners.
EN: What have your priorities been since stepping into the role?
Right now, my focus is listening and learning. Throughout most of my career, I've worked primarily on the structural side of the business, so this role has given me the opportunity to connect with people across all of our disciplines and better understand their day-to-day experiences and what success looks like for them. At the same time, I'm developing the organizational structure and framework that will guide the Technical Excellence program moving forward. It's challenging, but it's also rewarding because every conversation brings a new perspective. EN: You've been involved in numerous technical initiatives over the years. Which has been the most rewarding?
One initiative that stands out is our TechFocus sessions. They give teams the opportunity to share lessons learned, innovative solutions, and technical achievements with their peers across the company.
Over 100 people regularly attend these voluntary sessions. What I appreciate most is that they help us recognize and learn from the work our teams are doing every day. As engineers, we're often focused on identifying challenges and opportunities for improvement, but it's equally important to learn from our successes.
Those sessions also inspire our annual Technical Excellence Awards, which recognize technical contributions across the organization.
EN: AI is transforming many industries. How do you see it shaping the future of engineering? AI brings both opportunities and challenges. It's a topic that comes up regularly in conversations across the business because the technology is evolving so quickly. I don't see AI replacing engineers. Instead, I see it as a tool that can help us work more effectively. There is significant potential for AI to support the development of internal tools, improve quality control processes, and help teams focus their time on the areas where they can have the greatest impact. We're already exploring opportunities through our Ennovation team to understand how AI can support both technical excellence and operational efficiency as the technology continues to mature. EN: Looking ahead, what does success look like for this role?
Success starts with giving people the tools and support they need to excel in their roles. It also means creating more opportunities for mentorship, knowledge sharing, and professional development across the organization.
From a project perspective, success means delivering better information to our clients and project partners, improving efficiency, and continuously raising the standard of our work. While the specific metrics may look different across disciplines, the goal is to establish meaningful benchmarks and build on them over time.
Ultimately, success means putting that support into practice across disciplines and offices, so improvements become part of how we work every day.
EN: What excites you most about this opportunity?
The opportunity to help shape how we work as we continue to grow. Entuitive has built a strong reputation on the expertise of its people, and this role is about supporting that foundation for years to come.
For me, the value of this role is making it easier for our teams to learn from one another and apply that knowledge to their projects.