Thai Nguyen, director of innovation at Hensel Phelps and leader of its Diverge initiative, shared his career journey and insights on scaling construction technology from the ground up. Starting in the field and growing into one of the company’s earliest BIM champions, Nguyen helped shape the firm’s VDC program during a pivotal period in 2012. A milestone project with a major microchip manufacturer helped accelerate Hensel Phelps’ digital transformation, giving rise to enterprise-wide adoption of model-based coordination, schedule integration and material quantification. Nguyen emphasized that strong field experience and leadership trust were critical to driving meaningful change and breaking traditional business-as-usual cycles.

Today, Diverge functions as a strategic innovation and investment platform focused on curating scalable solutions that integrate seamlessly with Hensel Phelps’ operations. In response to growing tech stack complexity and fragmented systems, Diverge formalizes how the company identifies, tests and scales new tools. Nguyen underscored the importance of cross-industry collaboration, transparent feedback loops and shared ownership of innovation with trade partners, owners and other general contractors. With a structured startup intake process and new investment capabilities, Diverge is building a foundation to drive long-term impact across the construction ecosystem, supporting both internal transformation and industry-wide progress.

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