Head of Buildings and Operations for Serpentine

Background

Serpentine, the internationally renowned art gallery based in London's Kensington Gardens, engaged Maxwell Stephens to fill the position of Head of Buildings and Operations — a senior appointment responsible for the gallery's infrastructure, the safety of its visitors and its sustainability agenda.

Serpentine has been presenting pioneering exhibitions for over half a century, showing both emerging talent and internationally recognised artists. It is committed to free access for all, has built a strong connection with its local community and has amassed a significant digital following. Its programme continues to address urgent issues such as ecology, the climate emergency, equity and digital innovation.

That programme places real demands on the people who run the buildings. A gallery that is free to enter, open to a broad public and vocal on ecology needs its estate to be safe, reliable and demonstrably sustainable, not simply maintained.

The Challenge

Serpentine sought a seasoned professional to lead the Buildings and Operations department. The role is critical to maintaining the gallery's infrastructure, ensuring visitor safety and driving sustainability initiatives, and the brief called for an unusually broad skill set:

• Buildings maintenance. Extensive experience keeping a working building in good order, with exhibitions and public opening hours to work around.
• Facilities management. The ability to run services and suppliers as a coherent operation rather than a series of reactive fixes.
• Health and safety regulation. A thorough working knowledge of the regulations that apply to a public venue, where visitor safety is a daily operational concern.
• IT infrastructure. Responsibility for the technical backbone of the organisation alongside the physical one — a combination that few facilities leaders offer.

In our experience, candidates who are strong on buildings and facilities are rarely as strong on IT infrastructure, and vice versa. Adding a public-safety dimension and an active sustainability agenda narrows the field further. The search had to find people who genuinely covered all of it, rather than settle for depth in one area and passing familiarity with the rest.

Our Approach

Maxwell Stephens drew on its extensive network within the facilities and operations market to identify and vet candidates quickly, applying a rigorous selection process throughout:

• Understanding the organisation first. We took time to understand Serpentine's culture, values and operational requirements, so that the search was framed around how the gallery actually works, not only the job description.
• Targeted identification. Rather than relying on advertising response, we approached professionals whose track records showed the full combination of buildings, facilities, health and safety and IT experience.
• Vetting against the whole brief. Each candidate was assessed on all four areas, on their experience of managing complex projects and on their commitment to environmental sustainability.

The result was a pool of highly qualified individuals, each equipped to take on the Head of Buildings and Operations role, presented to Serpentine for consideration.

The Outcome

The search culminated in the appointment of a Head of Buildings and Operations who embodied the gallery's values and vision. The successful candidate brought a track record of managing complex projects, ensuring compliance with regulations and championing environmental sustainability, and integrated readily into Serpentine's dynamic environment.

Why This Placement Worked

Senior operations roles in cultural venues are often recruited as building maintenance jobs with extra responsibilities attached. That framing misses what the role actually is: the person accountable for whether a public venue is safe, open and running as the organisation intends. Framing the search around the whole remit — and around Serpentine's culture and values, not only its technical needs — is what produced an appointment that fitted.

If you are recruiting a similar position — a senior buildings and operations lead for a gallery, museum or other public-facing venue — Maxwell Stephens can help you define the brief and reach the candidates who genuinely cover it. Get in touch with our team.