Recruiting a PFI Manager for King's College London

Background

King's College London (KCL) is one of the world's leading universities, internationally recognised for excellence in teaching, research and innovation. With a diverse estate spanning multiple campuses across London, the University's Estates & Facilities Directorate plays a critical role in creating safe, sustainable and high-performing environments that support thousands of students, academics and visitors every day.

Maxwell Stephens was engaged to recruit a PFI Manager to oversee two of the University's most significant Private Finance Initiative (PFI) buildings — New Hunt's House and the Franklin-Wilkins Building. This strategically important appointment would ensure the effective management of complex contractual relationships while maintaining high operational standards across both facilities.

The Challenge

This was a highly specialised Facilities Management appointment requiring a rare combination of technical expertise, commercial awareness and stakeholder management skills.

Acting as King's College London's principal representative for the PFI contract, the successful candidate would be responsible for managing the relationship with the University's private sector partners, ensuring contractual performance, driving continuous improvement and safeguarding the long-term performance of both buildings. Key responsibilities included:

• Acting as the University's lead representative for all PFI contractual matters.
• Managing relationships with external service providers and PFI partners.
• Monitoring contractual performance and service delivery.
• Leading capital works and improvement projects.
• Managing operational and project budgets.
• Ensuring statutory compliance and health & safety standards were maintained.
• Supporting King's sustainability, energy efficiency and carbon reduction objectives.
• Working collaboratively with academic departments, professional services and senior stakeholders.

PFI management is a discipline of its own within facilities management. The client-side manager does not run the building directly; they hold a long-term contractor to account through the payment and performance mechanisms written into the agreement, which means reading the contract as closely as the building. People who have done this well, rather than simply worked alongside a PFI provider, are a small group.

Finding an individual who could balance that technical knowledge with sound commercial judgement and relationship management therefore required a highly targeted search. The successful candidate also needed experience across complex estates, multi-site operations and large outsourced service contracts, together with the confidence to influence senior stakeholders and contractors alike.

Our Approach

Maxwell Stephens carried out a comprehensive search across the Higher Education, Healthcare, Corporate Real Estate and Public Sector markets, targeting professionals with proven experience managing complex PFI and outsourced Facilities Management contracts.

Our assessment focused on candidates who could demonstrate:

• Significant experience managing PFI or major outsourced FM contracts.
• Strong commercial and contractual management capability.
• Solid project and programme management experience.
• Knowledge of statutory compliance and health & safety legislation.
• Experience working across large, complex operational estates.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills.
• A commitment to sustainability and continuous improvement.

Every shortlisted candidate went through detailed competency-based interviews to assess both their technical expertise and their ability to operate within a complex university environment.

The Outcome

Our search resulted in the appointment of a PFI Manager who exceeded King's College London's requirements. The successful candidate brought extensive experience in contract management, project delivery, operational leadership and stakeholder engagement, allowing them to make an immediate impact within the Estates & Facilities team.

Since joining the University, they have played a key role in:

• Strengthening relationships with PFI partners and contractors.
• Driving improvements in service delivery and contractual performance.
• Supporting the delivery of building improvement projects.
• Maintaining robust compliance and health & safety standards.
• Contributing towards King's sustainability and carbon reduction objectives.
• Ensuring New Hunt's House and the Franklin-Wilkins Building continue to provide high-quality environments for teaching, research and the student experience.

This appointment reflects Maxwell Stephens' experience in recruiting senior Facilities Management professionals for highly complex operational environments, combining specialist market knowledge with a targeted executive search approach.

If you are recruiting a PFI, contract or partnership manager to represent your organisation with an outsourced provider, Maxwell Stephens can help you define the brief and reach candidates who have managed these contracts from the client side. Get in touch with our team.

Client Testimonial

Maxwell Stephens has helped us hire our top 3 performers and most of the directors. The service is great and they always provide high quality candidates. Maxwell Stephens are a joy to work with from a digital and organisational point of view, we have worked with them for over 7 years and we have never fallen out!

Nick O'Donnell
Director of Estates & Facilities, King's College London