Aberdeenshire businesswoman Louise Lang has always known she was a people person.
Her determination and ambition have shone throughout her career.
As a teenager, the former Bridge of Don Academy pupil was never fazed by tricky conversations.
It’s this quality which has helped the 46-year-old carve out a successful 30 year career in human resources.
For the past three years Louise has been running her own people and consultancy firm Lang & Co.
But it’s not been the easiest of journeys for Louise as she’s struggled with mental health issues.
A subject she always openly talked about and believes is important not just in life but every workplace.
‘I was ambitious’
Growing up, she admits she never really knew what she wanted to do when she left school.
The former Greenbrae Primary pupil said: “I don’t think I ever knew what I wanted to do, but I loved school.
“In fact, they practically had to throw me out of school.
“I took four Highers but I slowly started skiving from all of the classes.
“I remember vividly them saying I had to do three Highers to stay in school so I went to the headteacher and told him if he lets me stay longer I could help teach first years how to swim.
“So I did that, and afterwards I was thrown out,” she laughed.
Louise, who left school at the end of fifth year, got her first job at Rollstud in Bridge of Don as a receptionist administrator.
“It’s where I first was sent for a long stand and for tartan paint.
“I was maybe there for less than a year, before I went to work for Reid Employment and worked as a customer services advisor when I was 18.”
It was at this point Louise, mum to eight-year-old Piper and three-and-a-half-year-old Magnus, realised the career path she’d like to follow.
She said: “I was ambitious, and knew I wanted to be a recruitment consultant.
“I left Reid Employment, because they wouldn’t let you be a consultant before you were 21.
“For me I wanted progression within the business. I knew how to do the job and knew I could do it no matter my age.”
‘I loved everything about HR’
Louise, who lives in Banchory, was headhunted by one of her clients and made the move to Sperry-Sun Drilling Services as a HR administrator.
She said: “I loved everything about HR. It’s ended up being my career for 30 years now.
“Speaking to people has not fazed me ever. I’ve always had the ability to talk to whoever I need to.
“The bits I liked about HR most were the employee relations pieces, the investigations and things like disciplinaries and grievances. I really enjoyed that.
“But I also enjoyed the operations side of it. When I was working with the guys at the coalface as well.”
Sperry-Sun was later bought over by Halliburton, and not long after, Louise took up a position at BP as HR advisor at the age of 20.
She then decided to travel round Australia for a year before returning to BP again aged 22 before leaving there and joining EnCana for six years.
Louise, who has been married to Graeme for six years, had further career moves working for Shell, GDF Suez and Talisman.
But it was when she was faced with redundancy at Talisman that Louise decided to take some time out and focus on her next move.
She said: “I’ve been through quite a significant mental health journey with various things in my life.
“And I thought, actually, I don’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t want to be in that organisation anymore.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, if I’m honest, but I just knew I was kind of scunnered.
“So from that, I just took voluntary redundancy with the plan to take maybe six weeks off.”
Mental health struggles
During this period Louise, who met Graeme 16 years ago, had also been going through her own mental health issues after suffering numerous miscarriages.
She said: “My mental health came from fertility struggles.
“It took us 10 years to get our two children and we lost six babies.
“When I think about my children, I’ve got eight children, but only two that lived.
“When I was at Talisman, we lost two before we got pregnant with my daughter. And then between my daughter and my son, we lost four.
“My mental health is stabilised, I would say. But my view is you always live with it. I’m medicated.
“So that’s been a bit of a game changer for me. I only decided to do that in 2017, because I was realising I was always looking back and never forward.
“For me, at some point, I’d like to get a focus on fertility in the workplace, because I think it takes a bigger toll than people expect.
“But I’m just not there yet in terms of getting the right people in the room.
“I can give my personal experience, of course, but if you want to bring it into the workplace, you have to have the right informative people.
“But it’s a topic that’s very important.”
Mental health a ‘scary word’ for employers
After leaving Talisman, Louise ended up taking five months off and in that time knew she wanted to do something around mental health due to her own experience.
She went in to partnership with Fiona Lindsay and formed the people focused consultancy Lindsay and Lang in December 2019.
She said: “We started off in the mental health space and quickly realised mental health was a scary word for employers.
“We changed it to wellbeing and quickly realised we could do more with it.
“We developed the business into workshops and learning and development, and also communications, because they’re all factors in wellbeing.
“But when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 our pipeline of work was put on hold.
“It impacted us significantly in terms of revenue because nothing was moving.
“So we both took time out to decide what we wanted to do.
“Fiona decided to go back into corporate and do what she loved, because she’s so brilliant at internal communications.
“I took time to think about it. And I told myself I’d give it six months and here I am still going today.”
Start of Lang & Co
Louise rebranded the business to Lang & Co in December 2022.
The people and culture consultancy, offers engagement, training and consultancy services.
It offers leader and organisational development, wellbeing in the workplace and internal communication and employee engagement.
She said: “I think that was a really good idea for me. It gave me a fresh start and more ownership on my own.
“I think I feel like I’ve thrived since then. Last year was the best year financially for Lang & Co.
“It’s just myself in terms of employees and I don’t intend to ever have a big organisation.
“What I’ve got is a team of five or six collaborators I can work with if I need to.
“But I must admit, I do like doing the doing myself. I like it’s my content and it all comes out of my brain.”
‘I’d do it even if I was a millionaire’
Louise has worked for a number of clients across the UK including Saputo Dairy, producers of Cathedral City cheese, based in Cornwall.
There she trained more than 1,000 leaders in mental health awareness.
Closer to home she’s worked with companies in Aberdeen including Stork, Boskalis, ASCO and Nexus.
She said: “I know what I’m striving for. But I’m quite adaptable in terms of the goals that I set for myself. And I never expect too much.
“I’ve got a different mindset around that now.
“I love my work and I love what I do.
“Even if I was a millionaire, I think I’d still do it.”
Conversation