Strengthening Regional Facilities Management for Evelyn Partners

Background

Evelyn Partners is a professional services firm providing integrated wealth management, professional advisory and financial services to clients across the UK. With a national office network and a strong emphasis on client service, the firm needs a property and facilities function that supports employees, clients and business operations reliably across many locations.

To strengthen its Property Management function, Evelyn Partners asked Maxwell Stephens to recruit an experienced Regional Facilities Manager to oversee facilities operations across the South region, with a brief to bring consistency, compliance and a high standard of service to a geographically dispersed portfolio. The appointment mattered for operational resilience, stakeholder satisfaction and the continued delivery of good workplace services.

The Challenge

Evelyn Partners needed a Regional Facilities Manager who could provide leadership, operational oversight and supplier management across multiple offices in the South region. The successful candidate would be responsible for ensuring that both hard and soft facilities services were delivered consistently across the portfolio, while supporting wider property management objectives and business continuity requirements.

Key areas of responsibility included:

• Regional facilities management
• Hard and soft services oversight
• Outsourced supplier management
• Cleaning, front-of-house and MEP contractor coordination
• Health, safety and statutory compliance
• Emergency response and incident escalation
• Budget management and cost control
• Stakeholder engagement and communication
• Office condition assessments and service improvements
• Relocation and workplace change support
• Tender processes and supplier transition management
• Risk register review and operational governance

The role called for a facilities professional who could balance day-to-day operational delivery with strategic oversight, giving local office teams clear support while holding service standards steady across the region. Strong leadership and communication skills were essential: the post engages daily with local management, senior stakeholders, regional facilities teams and external service providers.

Regional roles in professional services firms carry a particular expectation. Offices are client-facing, the people using them have high expectations of the workplace, and the Regional Facilities Manager is often the only FM presence a local office sees. That places a premium on judgement, visibility and the ability to get outsourced suppliers to perform on sites the manager cannot be at every day.

Our Approach

Understanding the Requirement

Maxwell Stephens worked closely with Evelyn Partners to understand the structure of the Property Management function, the operational requirements of the South region and the leadership qualities the role needed. The successful candidate would have to show strong regional FM experience, supplier management capability and the ability to operate confidently within a professional services environment.

Specialist Search

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

• Regional facilities management and multi-site workplace operations
• Professional services environments
• Hard and soft FM services
• Contractor and supplier management
• Health and safety compliance
• Emergency response and business continuity
• Budget and cost management
• Workplace relocations and projects

We placed particular emphasis on candidates with a minimum of five years' facilities management experience and a proven ability to manage multiple ongoing priorities across a regional portfolio.

Candidate Assessment

Candidates were assessed against a comprehensive range of technical, operational and behavioural competencies: regional facilities management expertise, hard and soft services knowledge, supplier and contractor performance management, stakeholder engagement and communication, leadership and team support capability, budget management and financial awareness, emergency response and incident management, risk management and compliance oversight, and problem-solving and decision-making ability.

The assessment focused on finding an individual who could deliver operational consistency while strengthening communication, supplier accountability and workplace service standards across the region.

The Outcome

Maxwell Stephens appointed a highly experienced Regional Facilities Manager with the technical capability, leadership skills and stakeholder management experience the role required. The successful candidate brought a strong background in facilities management across multi-site environments and a demonstrated ability to provide clear direction, structure and operational support.

Key strengths included:

• Extensive regional facilities management experience, with strong hard and soft services knowledge.
• Proven outsourced supplier management expertise.
• Health, safety and compliance capability.
• Effective budget management and cost control skills.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and communication abilities.
• Experience supporting relocation and workplace change projects.
• A proactive, practical leadership style.

Following their appointment, the Regional Facilities Manager quickly integrated into the Property Management function and took responsibility for facilities performance across the South region. The benefits across Evelyn Partners' regional office portfolio included better operational oversight across multiple locations; improved management of outsourced suppliers and service partners; stronger consistency across cleaning, front-of-house and MEP services; strengthened health, safety and compliance governance; improved emergency response and incident escalation processes; better stakeholder communication and local management support; improved budget planning and cost control; and greater visibility of risk, office condition and service performance.

The placement gave Evelyn Partners a Regional Facilities Manager able to support regional consistency and a high-quality workplace experience across the South region.

Why This Placement Worked

Regional facilities appointments succeed or fail on two things: whether the person can hold outsourced suppliers to account across sites they cannot visit every day, and whether local office leadership trusts them. We searched for candidates who had already done both in a multi-site setting, and assessed communication and supplier management as hard requirements rather than soft skills.

Maxwell Stephens supports professional services firms, corporate occupiers and national organisations with specialist recruitment across facilities, workplace and property management, including regional and multi-site facilities leadership, workplace operations, hard and soft FM services, contractor and supplier management, health and safety compliance, and workplace projects and relocations. If you are recruiting a regional facilities role across a dispersed office network, get in touch with our team.