Delivering Strategic Facilities Leadership for EPAM

Background

Maxwell Stephens was engaged by EPAM to recruit a Head of Facilities Management responsible for a significant multi-site property portfolio. The appointment mattered: it would determine whether facilities services across a diverse estate continued to be delivered to a high standard, with compliance, sustainability and stakeholder satisfaction maintained throughout.

EPAM needed a senior facilities leader who could drive service performance, manage complex stakeholder relationships and lead both hard and soft facilities functions across multiple locations.

The Challenge

EPAM required an experienced Head of Facilities Management with the technical expertise, leadership capability and commercial awareness to oversee a large and operationally complex portfolio. The successful candidate would set strategic direction while keeping service delivery, compliance and occupier experience at a consistently high standard across every site.

Key areas of responsibility included:

• Strategic facilities management leadership
• Multi-site portfolio management
• Hard and soft facilities services oversight
• Health, safety and statutory compliance
• Contractor and supplier management
• Service charge management and budget control
• Sustainability and environmental performance
• ISO14001 implementation and maintenance
• Mechanical and electrical (M&E) operations oversight
• Stakeholder and client relationship management
• Operational performance improvement
• Team leadership and development

Two requirements narrowed the field considerably. The candidate had to combine strategic planning with hands-on operational delivery, maintaining strong relationships with clients, occupiers, contractors and service providers along the way. And they needed significant experience in managing agent or landlord environments, with a strong working knowledge of service charge management and compliance frameworks.

That last point is the one that catches out many otherwise capable facilities leaders. Service charge management is a discipline in its own right: budgets are built and reconciled line by line, spend has to be justifiable to the parties funding it, and the facilities lead answers for that spend to people outside their own reporting line. EPAM wanted that background in the successful candidate for the habits it builds — disciplined cost control, clear documentation and the confidence to defend a budget under scrutiny — all of which carry directly into running services well across multiple sites. Relatively few FM candidates have it, however strong their credentials elsewhere, and that narrowed the field considerably.

Our Approach

Understanding the Requirement

Maxwell Stephens worked closely with EPAM to build a detailed understanding of the portfolio, its operational challenges and the long-term objectives attached to the role. The successful candidate would need strong leadership capability, technical facilities expertise and a proven ability to drive continuous improvement across multiple sites.

Specialist Search

Drawing on our facilities management and property management network, we ran a targeted search focused on candidates with experience across:

• Multi-site facilities management
• Managing agent environments and commercial property operations
• Health and safety leadership
• Sustainability and environmental management
• Service charge management
• Mechanical and electrical operations
• Contractor and supplier management
• Strategic facilities leadership

We placed particular emphasis on candidates who had managed complex portfolios while maintaining high standards of service, compliance and stakeholder engagement.

Candidate Assessment

Candidates were assessed against a comprehensive range of technical, commercial and leadership competencies: strategic facilities management expertise, multi-site operational leadership, health, safety and compliance knowledge, service charge management capability, sustainability and ISO14001 experience, contractor and supplier performance management, stakeholder engagement and client relationship skills, and team leadership and organisational development.

The assessment was designed to identify a facilities leader who could deliver immediate operational value and long-term strategic improvement, rather than one or the other.

The Outcome

Maxwell Stephens appointed a highly experienced Head of Facilities Management who met and exceeded EPAM's requirements. The successful candidate brought extensive experience managing large property portfolios and a strong track record across both hard and soft FM disciplines.

Their key strengths included:

• Extensive multi-site facilities management experience, including proven leadership within managing agent environments.
• Strong health, safety and compliance expertise.
• Significant service charge and budget management capability.
• Strong knowledge of M&E operations and building services.
• Experience delivering sustainability initiatives and ISO14001 standards.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and client relationship management skills, with a proactive leadership style.

Following their appointment, the Head of Facilities Management took responsibility for the strategic and operational management of the portfolio. The benefits across EPAM's estate included stronger leadership of facilities operations and clearer oversight of hard and soft FM services; strengthened health, safety and statutory compliance; improved service charge management and financial control; better contractor and supplier performance management; a sharper focus on sustainability and environmental performance; stronger stakeholder engagement and client satisfaction; and continued improvement in operational efficiency and service quality.

The placement gave EPAM a senior facilities leader able to sustain service standards, support long-term asset performance and run a facilities function fit for a portfolio of this scale.

Why This Placement Worked

Multi-site Head of Facilities searches tend to go wrong when the brief is written around a single building and then scaled up. The disciplines this role actually turned on — service charge accountability, occupier and stakeholder relationships, statutory compliance across several buildings at once — are the ones a generalist FM background is least likely to cover. This search was scoped around those disciplines from the start, and assessed against them explicitly.

Maxwell Stephens recruits senior facilities and property professionals across facilities management, property operations and workplace leadership, including Head of Facilities Management, Facilities Director, multi-site facilities leadership, property and estate management, health and safety leadership, sustainability and ESG, and service charge management appointments. If you are recruiting a senior facilities leader for a multi-site portfolio, get in touch with our team.