Background
The Royal Institution (Ri) is one of the UK's most respected scientific organisations, dedicated to making science accessible to all through education, public engagement and its scientific programmes. It operates from a historic Grade I listed headquarters on Albemarle Street in London, and combines that heritage with a commitment to sustainability and innovation.
As part of its long-term estate strategy, the Ri launched Project FootpRint, a major capital programme designed to improve the environmental performance of its historic estate, reduce carbon emissions and improve building efficiency while preserving the architectural significance of the property.
To lead the programme, the Ri asked Maxwell Stephens to recruit an experienced Facilities Project Manager capable of delivering a complex retrofit within a live heritage environment.
The Challenge
This was a highly specialised appointment, requiring a blend of facilities management expertise, project delivery capability, heritage building experience and sustainability leadership that few candidates hold together. The successful candidate would have to run a major capital project while keeping disruption to the Institution's daily operations, public programmes, tenants and events to a minimum.
Key areas of responsibility included:
- Leading Project FootpRint from planning through to delivery
- Managing the retrofit of a Grade I listed building
- Driving energy efficiency and carbon reduction initiatives
- Coordinating multiple stakeholders across the organisation
- Managing project governance and reporting requirements
- Overseeing budgets and grant-funded expenditure
- Ensuring compliance with heritage and planning requirements
- Managing project risks and operational impacts
- Liaising with consultants, contractors and external partners
- Supporting business continuity throughout the programme
The role also required extensive experience managing complex capital works, sustainability projects and stakeholder engagement within sensitive heritage environments, together with strong communication skills, financial management expertise and the ability to work within government-funded project requirements.
Retrofitting a Grade I listed building is a different problem from retrofitting an office. Interventions that would be routine elsewhere — insulation, glazing, plant replacement, services routing — need heritage and planning consent, specialist contractors and an acceptance that the fabric of the building sets the limits. Add grant funding, with its reporting and audit obligations, and a public programme that cannot pause, and the project manager's job becomes as much about governance and sequencing as about construction.
Our Approach
Understanding the Requirement
Maxwell Stephens worked closely with senior leadership at the Royal Institution to build a detailed understanding of both the technical requirements and the wider strategic objectives of Project FootpRint. It was clear that the successful candidate would need to combine facilities management knowledge with significant project management expertise, and to show a genuine commitment to sustainability and heritage preservation.
Specialist Search
Using our facilities management and estates network, we ran a targeted search focused on professionals with experience across:
- Capital projects and building retrofit
- Heritage and listed buildings
- Facilities management
- Sustainability and net zero initiatives
- Estate transformation programmes
- Stakeholder engagement
- Grant-funded projects
- Compliance and governance
- Operational risk management
We placed particular emphasis on candidates with proven experience delivering complex projects within occupied and operational buildings.
Candidate Assessment
Candidates were assessed against a comprehensive range of technical and behavioural competencies: project and programme management capability, heritage building experience, facilities and estate management expertise, sustainability and energy management knowledge, budget and financial management skills, governance and reporting experience, stakeholder engagement and communication ability, risk management and operational planning, and leadership and collaborative working style.
The assessment focused on finding an individual who could deliver a transformative estate project while protecting the Institution's operational and heritage requirements.
The Outcome
Maxwell Stephens appointed an experienced Facilities Project Manager with a strong track record in complex estate projects, sustainability programmes and stakeholder management. The successful candidate brought:
- Extensive facilities and project management experience, including proven delivery of capital works within heritage environments.
- Strong sustainability and carbon reduction knowledge.
- Experience managing grant-funded programmes, with excellent governance and reporting capability.
- Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills, and a collaborative, practical approach.
- A genuine commitment to heritage preservation and environmental improvement.
Following their appointment, the Facilities Project Manager quickly integrated into the organisation and took responsibility for driving Project FootpRint forward while maintaining operational continuity across the Institution. The benefits to the Royal Institution included strong leadership of a major sustainability and retrofit programme; effective coordination of complex stakeholder requirements; stronger governance, reporting and project oversight; better management of project risks and operational impacts; support for carbon reduction and environmental objectives; the integration of sustainability initiatives within a heritage estate; continued delivery of public programmes and tenant services throughout project activities; and a clear pathway towards long-term estate resilience and efficiency.
The placement gave the Royal Institution a Facilities Project Manager capable of delivering one of the most important estate projects in its history while supporting its wider mission of scientific education, sustainability and public engagement.
Why This Placement Worked
Searches for heritage retrofit roles fail when they are run as either construction project management searches or facilities searches. The candidates who can deliver a programme like Project FootpRint sit in the overlap: they have run capital works in occupied listed buildings, they understand grant governance, and they can hold a relationship with an institution's leadership, tenants and public-facing teams at the same time. We defined the brief around that overlap and assessed against every part of it.
Maxwell Stephens supports organisations across the heritage, cultural, education, commercial and not-for-profit sectors with specialist recruitment covering facilities management, estates leadership and capital project delivery, including facilities project management, heritage property management, sustainability and net zero programmes, building retrofit, and compliance and governance. If you are recruiting for a capital or sustainability programme in a heritage or operational estate, get in touch with our team.