Facilities & Workplace Appointments for Business Growth Fund (BGF)

About Business Growth Fund (BGF)

Business Growth Fund (BGF) is one of the UK's most active growth capital investors, providing long-term funding and strategic support to ambitious small and mid-sized businesses across a wide range of sectors. Since its launch, BGF has invested billions of pounds into hundreds of companies. It operates a national office network, and its workplaces need to reflect the professionalism and service standards of a fast-paced investment business.

As BGF expanded, it recognised that a strong workplace function was essential to supporting its people and protecting its operations, and it appointed Maxwell Stephens to recruit key positions across its Workplace and Facilities team.

Our work with BGF

Over the course of the partnership, Maxwell Stephens has made three appointments for BGF:

• Head of Facilities, leading Facilities Management across eight UK offices
• Facilities Manager, corporate headquarters
• Front of House Supervisor

Each role called for a different blend of leadership, operational expertise and customer focus, but every candidate had to thrive in a collaborative investment environment where service standards and professionalism are taken for granted. In every search, cultural fit was assessed directly rather than inferred from a CV.

Head of Facilities

BGF needed a Head of Facilities to take strategic and operational responsibility for its national property portfolio: Facilities Management across eight offices, with further expansion anticipated. The brief spanned strategic FM, hard and soft service delivery, health, safety and environmental compliance, supplier procurement and contract management, budget ownership, multi-site leadership, executive-level stakeholder engagement, and workplace standards, sustainability and continuous improvement. BGF needed someone who could quickly become a trusted business partner, providing day-to-day operational control and long-term direction.

Multi-site corporate estates raise a particular difficulty. The Head of Facilities is rarely on site, so the role depends on setting standards, choosing suppliers and building processes that hold up without constant supervision. Candidates who have only run a single headquarters building often find that shift harder than expected.

We ran a targeted executive search for senior FM professionals who had led complex, multi-site corporate estates, and assessed them on technical expertise, leadership, commercial awareness, stakeholder management and their ability to drive improvement. The appointee brought extensive experience in corporate FM, operational leadership, health and safety and financial management, and went on to:

• Take responsibility for FM across BGF's national office portfolio, with every workplace run to a consistent standard.
• Implement hard and soft FM strategies that improved service delivery and contractor performance across all sites.
• Establish a proactive approach to health, safety and environmental management and statutory compliance.
• Manage Facilities budgets closely with the finance team.
• Develop scalable FM processes to support BGF's continued expansion.

Facilities Manager, corporate headquarters

BGF needed a proactive Facilities Manager to run workplace operations at its corporate headquarters, covering facilities, workplace services and Health & Safety, key supplier relationships and front-of-house. The responsibilities were:

• Day-to-day facilities management operations.
• Health & Safety compliance across the workplace.
• Acting as First Aider and Fire Warden.
• Business continuity and emergency planning.
• Workplace moves and space planning.
• Office hardware and infrastructure, coordinated with IT teams.
• Managing front-of-house personnel, performance and development.
• Supplier procurement and contract negotiations.
• Monitoring contractor performance and service levels.
• Catering and workplace support services.
• Continuous improvement of the workplace environment.

In a single-headquarters professional services business, the Facilities Manager is visible to everyone, every day, and the standard of the workplace is read as a reflection of the firm itself. That raises the bar on presence and judgement, not just technical competence.

We built a candidate profile around professionals from premium corporate workplaces who combined technical FM expertise with strong interpersonal skills, covering H&S leadership, building systems, space planning, supplier and budget management, front-of-house leadership and business continuity. Cultural fit became the deciding factor. Maxwell Stephens placed a Facilities Manager who quickly established themselves as a trusted member of the business.

Front of House Supervisor

As the first point of contact for employees and visitors, the Front of House Supervisor shapes how BGF's workplace is experienced. BGF needed someone with strong customer service skills and organisational ability, able to lead reception and front-of-house operations, communicate clearly and confidently, take a proactive, solutions-focused approach and represent the organisation professionally at all times.

The search applied the same structured assessment used for BGF's other workplace roles, weighing customer service mindset and cultural alignment alongside experience. Maxwell Stephens placed the Front of House Supervisor.

Testimonials

Client testimonial

Having been on both sides of the recruitment process with Maxwell Stephens in the last few years, I have been totally impressed with the team. They fully took on the brief to find an FM that not only had the skillset to deliver a high standard of service, but also have a candidate that fits into our corporate culture. The focus in culture fit was the most difficult to identify, it’s not a qualification, it’s a quality that comes from life experiences, culture and most importantly attitude. To ask a recruiter to source someone better than me was not too difficult! All managers should have the attitude to hire or train staff to be better than themselves. This identifies personal weaknesses, drives quality and productivity. Maxwell Stephens supported BGF to source a FM that more than fitted the brief.

Leigh Edgar, Group Head of Operations, BGF

Candidate testimonial

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the entire Maxwell team for helping me secure this amazing role at BGF. A special thanks to William for handling my case initially, and to Amelia for guiding me throughout the entire recruitment process. Your support has provided me with an incredible opportunity. I have now settled in very well and couldn't be more pleased. I wish you all the greatest success in the future.

Why it worked

Cultural fit is the hardest thing to recruit for because, as the client observed, it is not a qualification. It only becomes visible when a consultant has spent enough time with the organisation to know what it looks like, and then assesses for it deliberately rather than hoping the shortlist happens to contain it. Across three very different roles, from front of house to the leadership of a national estate, that was the constant. Technical requirements were still tested in full: the Head of Facilities search, for example, prioritised candidates who had already led comparable multi-site portfolios.

If you are building or strengthening a workplace and facilities team, whether for a single headquarters or a multi-site estate, get in touch with our team to discuss your brief.