Written by Nicholas Roberts for the May 21, 2021, edition of Penguin News - published under the title “Chief Executive Andy Keeling driven by social responsibility.”

PENGUIN News profile features Andy Keeling, the new Chief Executive of the Falkland Islands Government, replacing outgoing Chief Executive Barry Rowland.

Andy was born in Leicester, in the UK, where he lived until he went to university to undertake his first degree in Bristol.

“I looked all over the country for my first job after graduating, I really wanted to work in London for a couple of years – the capital city, the big city lights and all that.”

This wasn’t to be, however, and Andy was offered work back in Leicester.

“It was a bit of a coincidence really, so I went to work at Leicester City Council for a couple of years, working on a programme called Estate Action which was essentially refurbishing council estates using government money that they had actually top sliced off local authorities to begin with. So really they kind of took our money and then gave it back to us in this competitive bidding framework.”

After a few years Andy moved to Derby City Council to manage a couple of housing estates. “One was a little bit more problematic than the other in terms of the sort of social problems that it had, but it was a good eye opener,” he told Penguin News.

Following his time at Derby Andy returned to Leicester at a more senior level, still within housing. Since then he has worked in Leicester City Council, in different fields in the organisation including regeneration and economic development, corporate services such as HR and finance, and a “spell of managing social care.”

Immediately before coming to the Falklands Andy spent 10 years as the Chief Officer of Leicester City Council.

“I got appointed the same year we moved to an elected mayoral model of Governance for the city council, so I worked with the same city mayor for 10 years. He kept getting re-elected and he saw no reason to get rid of me so that was quite nice,” he said with a laugh.

Talking about how he came to the post, Andy told Penguin News he saw the advert and discussed it with his wife.

“Anya and I were talking about it and thinking well, this looks like it could be quite exciting, setting new challenges; so we applied. I applied for this job and we applied for life on the Falklands.”

Asked about what motivates him in his work, Andy related a story that his mother had gone back to university to qualify as a social worker and told him: “Andy, whatever you do, don’t be a social worker.” He said that after that he “wanted to do something that was seen as being socially good, socially responsible” and so went into housing, as it was still in a “caring/societal sort of profession that was a benefit to society.”

On what parts of his work ahead as Chief Executive he looked forward to Andy said he was excited by a lot of the projects underway in the islands. “Putting together a 10-year plan for your capital programme is quite an ambitious thing to do, and I think it’s really great that Barry has started a process where the government is thinking about planning for the long term.”

He continued, “It’s not dissimilar to some of the work I’ve done in the UK so maybe that’s one of the reasons why I quite like it, so there’s a bit of comfort there.”

“It might sound really boring, but getting involved in new areas of policy work... I spent a couple of evenings reading about the ITQ in the fishing industry, trying to get underneath what it is we’re doing and why… Because it’s new it’s completely fascinating to me. Understanding the genetics behind wool production, I’d never thought about any of this stuff in my life before. All of a sudden I’m talking to people about wool production, the science behind it, and what the impact of it is.”

Summing up his excitement he said “it’s a kind of mixture of the things that I’m familiar with so there’s comfort for me; driving forward capital programmes, making sure there’s resource planning that sits underneath it - but also finding out how all these really, really, interesting new things that have so many different strands to them, work.”

Speaking about his out of work life, Andy said: “I guess the first thing to put out there on the table is that Anya and I are both keen supporters of Leicester City Football Club, and although we won’t be able to go and see them here,” he said, “we will be supporting Leicester from afar. We have permission from the football club, actually, to set up an official Falkland Islands supporters club, if we can find a few more members.”

Beyond the watching of football Andy said that he also likes to play. “Because of my age it’s only five-a-side now, and of the hour we’d spend playing I spend about 45 minutes of that in goal. But I have got much better as a goalie over the last couple of years.”

Andy also used to cycle in the UK, but sold his bike before moving to the islands. On whether he’s a fan of headwind cycling he said “No I like exactly the opposite!”

In general, though, Andy said that he hopes to, “get involved and get engaged with what’s going on… Whether that’s sports, whether that’s the arts, or whether that’s going to the pub and having a beer or joining a darts league.” He told Penguin News that this is already underway as his wife Anya has a part in an upcoming FIODA production and Andy has attended a poker night, the first in his life.

Andy and Anya are joined in the Islands by their dog, Frank, and they hope to be joined by Anya’s son for a visit after his university graduation in June.

Nicholas Roberts