Top job: Angela Williams, group HR director, Land Securities

Property company Land Securities has appointed Angela Williams as group HR director. She will lead a 20-strong internal HR team, managing 2,000 employees across the UK.

Where were you working before and what were your duties?
I joined from Electronic Arts, where I held the post of European HR director, with responsibility for leading the organisational and strategic HR input across Europe.

What are your new duties?
I will be responsible for developing and delivering the group's HR strategy to ensure that it maintains its position as a leading employer in the UK property industry, and work closely with the business to deliver an integrated approach to HR.

What do you hope to achieve in your new role?
That the company continues to value the key role HR can play in building its success across the organisation. I want the company to build its potential on an ongoing basis and for HR to provide leading-edge services and be an integral part of this success.

What are the challenges HR faces in the next five years?
To ensure it changes and is ahead of the curve, leading the business and ensuring that the solutions we put in place continue to be relevant and add value to the business. We need to be innovative, creative, flexible and think as business leaders.

What's the worst thing about HR?
The part of the profession that thinks they have to prove HR adds value and is strategic - we should be doing this anyway.

What is the greatest risk you have ever taken?
Flying through a monsoon storm in Borneo with lightening striking across the plane - dramatic, but exceptionally frightening.

What is the essential tool in your job?
My communication skills, my mobile phone and my laptop.

What advice would you give to people starting out in HR?
Don't do it just because you like people - although this is important. Do it because you want to add value. Understand how a business works and get some broad experience. Treat people fairly, consistently and with respect.

What is the most annoying piece of management jargon?
'Let's run the flag up the pole and see who salutes.'

What was the last book you read?
Michael Palin's Himalaya and Jim Collins' Good to Great.

What would be your dream job?
A singer in the West End, preferably the lead in something like Les Miserables or Phantom of the Opera.

What is the best office party you've ever attended?
The Walt Disney Christmas party at the Natural History Museum.

Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
My husband - but if it wasn't him, then Michael Palin or Richard Gere.

WILLIAMS' CV

• 2005 Group HR director, Land Securities
• 2003 European HR director, Electronic Arts
• 2000 VP HR and organisation development, QXL Ricardo
• 1999 HR and training manager, The Walt Disney Company
• 1994 HR and training manager, BH Blackwell
• 1991 HR adviser, Esso