Executive Leadership Appointments for HPS Services and Edozo

About HPS Services and Edozo

HPS Services (HPS Services FM) is a specialist facilities management provider to the purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA), Build-to-Rent (BTR) and higher education sectors. Headquartered in South Kensington, London, it employs more than 500 people across a nationwide portfolio and works for some of the country's largest student accommodation providers, private residential operators and higher education institutions.

Alongside HPS Services FM sits Edozo, a property technology business providing automated data, valuation and workflow solutions to UK property consultancies, with its own growth plans in the PropTech market.

Our work with HPS Services

What began as a conversation about salary benchmarking became a retained executive search partnership as HPS strengthened its leadership team for a period of expansion. Maxwell Stephens was also engaged to recruit a Group Finance Director to lead finance across HPS Services FM and Edozo. Appointments made:

• Managing Director, HPS Services
• Business Unit Director, Seasonal Turnaround Services (STS), HPS Services
• Operations Director, HPS Services
• Two Operations Managers, HPS Services
• Group Finance Director, HPS Services FM and Edozo

Building the HPS leadership team

HPS was targeting sustained annual growth while delivering a consistent standard of service across an increasingly complex client portfolio. Each appointment needed a leader who could support operational performance and help shape the direction of the business.

Business Unit Director, Seasonal Turnaround Services

STS is one of HPS's most commercially important business units, delivering large-scale cleaning, housekeeping and mobilisation programmes across student accommodation portfolios over the summer, with an intense peak between June and September. The brief covered strategic leadership of the unit, operational planning across multiple nationwide projects, financial ownership and commercial accountability, leadership of large operational teams, client relationships, process improvement, and growing revenue while reducing seasonal dependency.

Seasonal turnaround work compresses a year's worth of delivery risk into a few weeks, which is why leaders who have run it before are worth far more than generalists with a strong CV. The Business Unit Director we placed brought extensive leadership experience in soft facilities management and established themselves at the centre of the division. Results included successful seasonal mobilisation programmes, high client satisfaction, year-on-year revenue growth, better operational planning and financial control, and more efficient working practices across the division.

Managing Director

HPS needed a Managing Director to work closely with the Founder, Non-Executive Directors and finance leadership on the long-term growth of the business: developing and executing corporate strategy, driving commercial growth, strengthening operational performance, leading organisational transformation, building leadership capability and supporting acquisitions and expansion. The search concentrated on commercially driven leaders who had scaled service-led businesses while keeping firm operational control. Maxwell Stephens placed a commercially focused Managing Director to lead the next phase of growth.

Operations Director and two Operations Managers

To support expansion, HPS also needed operational leaders who could strengthen service delivery, improve consistency across contracts and lead regional teams in a fast-paced facilities management environment. We placed an experienced Operations Director responsible for operational consistency and performance, and two Operations Managers who strengthened regional leadership and contract delivery.

How the searches were run

Recruiting several senior leaders at once needed a structured process. We spent time with HPS's senior leadership on business objectives, culture, leadership structure, commercial priorities and the operational demands of the PBSA and BTR sectors, then built a candidate profile for each role. The search targeted soft facilities management, cleaning and support services, national and multi-site operations, profit and loss responsibility, commercial leadership and operational transformation. Candidates went through a structured assessment of leadership, commercial and financial understanding, strategic thinking, operational delivery, stakeholder management and cultural alignment, with particular attention to resilience and fit with an entrepreneurial, high-growth business.

Group Finance Director for HPS Services FM and Edozo

As both businesses entered a period of expansion, HPS Services FM and Edozo needed a Group Finance Director to lead finance across two complementary but operationally distinct organisations. The remit covered group financial reporting, governance and board reporting; business planning, budgeting, forecasting and KPIs; cash flow and liquidity across a multi-entity structure; margin and efficiency improvement; mergers, acquisitions, investment readiness, exit planning and value creation; and leading and developing the finance function.

The difficulty was the combination. Finance leaders who have scaled a people-heavy services business are not always the same people who have built the financial model for a technology company, and this brief needed both, across two businesses at different points in their growth cycles.

We worked with senior stakeholders in both organisations on their growth objectives, financial structures and strategic plans, then searched across facilities management, property, professional and technology services for finance leaders with multi-entity, scale-up, M&A, transaction support and exit preparation experience. Candidates were assessed on financial strategy and commercial finance, forecasting and reporting, cash flow and working capital, team leadership and succession, board engagement, and delivery of efficiency improvements.

Maxwell Stephens placed an experienced Group Finance Director with a track record of leading finance functions through growth and transformation, including multi-entity leadership and transaction readiness. They took on financial leadership of both HPS Services FM and Edozo.

Why it worked

The partnership grew from a salary benchmarking conversation because each search started from HPS's commercial ambitions, operational pressures and culture rather than from a job title. The same principle shaped the Group Finance Director search: understanding both businesses before defining the profile produced a leader equipped to serve both, rather than one anchored to services or technology alone.

If you are building or strengthening a leadership team in a facilities services business, whether a single Managing Director, a group finance appointment or several linked senior roles, talk to Maxwell Stephens about scoping the roles and reaching leaders who have grown service-led businesses before.