In this episode of The Purposeful Strategist, Belden Menkus speaks with Stuart Wallace, Chief Executive of Forth Ports Limited, about what it takes to lead critical national infrastructure at a moment of profound transition — and what a long career inside one organisation teaches you about strategy, culture, and purpose.

Stuart joined Forth Ports in 2002 as financial controller for its Scottish operations, making a habit of getting to know people in other roles and ‘what makes the business tick.’ He became COO in 2016 and Chief Executive in 2024, having held nine different roles across the group. Today, Forth Ports handles around 30 million tonnes of cargo a year across eight sites, employs over 1,300 people, and holds statutory harbour authority responsibility for the Forth and Tay estuaries.

In their conversation, they discuss:

• What ports do, and what’s at stake if they don’t work, particularly for an island nation like the UK.

• The purpose of Forth Ports to act as an economic driver for trade and their other areas of operation, and how this purpose is supported by their strong values of collaboration and dependability.

• How Forth Ports approached the energy transition: recognising that the market was pivoting to renewables and investing in offshore wind infrastructure at Dundee without a single contract in place. They are now delivering foundations for a 1.2 gigawatt wind farm out of Leith.

• The discipline of long-horizon strategy: why a port operator can take infrastructure risk that other businesses can’t, and how Stuart thinks about investment decisions for assets that will still matter many decades from now.

• What it means to lead a business that is simultaneously commercial, statutory, and community-rooted, and how Stuart has made the organisation’s values felt on the ground, not just posted on a wall.

Forth Ports: https://www.forthports.co.uk/

Menkus & Associates: https://www.menkus.com/

Supported by Norman Broadbent: https://www.normanbroadbent.com/

Belden Menkus is the Managing Director of Menkus & Associates, a senior strategic advisory practice that provides strategic clarity for businesses with a public remit, where scrutiny is high, governance is complex, and the answers aren’t obvious. His McKinsey training combined with more than 30 years working at Board and ExCo level gives him both the analytical rigour and the relational experience that complex, high-stakes leadership situations demand.

Belden hosts The Purposeful Strategist, a weekly podcast. It explores how senior leaders bring purpose to life through strategy and reflects the same questions that drive the consulting work.