Apprentice to President: Soft Skills + Mindset Makes a Champion with Angela Drexel, BlackRock Construction

Building Scale

We interview successful Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) business leaders to learn how they use people, processes, and technology to scale their businesses.

Apprentice to President: Soft Skills + Mindset Makes a Champion with Angela Drexel, BlackRock Construction

E167 • Sep 29, 2026 • 64 mins

Angela Drexel shares her path to BlackRock Construction and how LiveWire evolved into a broader company with ambitious growth goals. She discusses hiring for curiosity, transferable skills, and culture fit, along with building career paths and leadership development frameworks inspired. Angela also covers addressing negative behavior quickly, deciding when to coach or let someone go, and using performance improvement plans as a coaching tool. The conversation moves into drawing inspiration from the Chicago Bulls to technology adoption, AI, system unification, and how a holdco structure supports growth, shared services, and M&A.

Key Points

Culture has to be defined, taught, and enforced with the same discipline as operations, because one toxic person can drag down productivity and morale across the entire team.
Sustainable growth comes from pairing ambitious vision with strong leadership, transferable-skill hiring, and clear development paths that help people grow into bigger roles.
Technology creates real leverage in construction when it reduces administrative burden, standardizes workflows, and gives teams better tools for contract review, project management, and forecasting.

Connect with Angela Drexel, President - BlackRock Construction

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-drexel-18a6301a/ Website: https://www.blackrock-construction.com/

Connect with Justin & Will - Will's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willforet/ Justin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justneagle/

Learn More & Connect With Spot Migration - Website: https://www.spotmigration.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/spot-migration Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spotmigration YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Spotmigration

Do you want to be a guest on the show? Go to https://buildingscale.net/guests Need to discuss your IT and Cybersecurity Strategy? Go to https://buildingscale.net/help

Speakers

Angela Drexel

Guest • 76%

Will Foret

Host • 13%

Will Foret

Host • 2%

Justin Neagle

Host • 10%

Chapters

0:53	Technology support, cybersecurity, and Angela Drexel’s journey to BlackRock Construction
4:56	LiveWire’s evolution into BlackRock and expanded services
7:07	Ambitious growth goals and leadership driving expansion
11:59	Hiring for transferable skills, curiosity, and culture fit
14:01	Building culture frameworks, career paths, and leadership development
20:03	Addressing negative behavior and performance issues quickly
23:21	How negativity spreads and impacts productivity
26:37	Deciding when to coach or let someone go
27:49	Using performance improvement plans as coaching tools
30:16	Impact of underperformance on the team
35:40	Leadership development training and soft skills
38:19	Lessons from the Bulls and building championship teams
43:14	Technology adoption and exploring AI
48:22	Where AI has created the most time savings
51:59	Future technology investments and unifying systems
54:04	Continued tech investments and system unification
55:20	How a holdco structure supports growth and M&A
57:34	Shared services under the holdco structure
59:04	Career reflections and advice to her younger self
1:02:03	How to contact Angela and closing promotion
1:02:52	Show outro and buildingscale.net/help

Transcript

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