Role: Director of Property

Background

This role would be responsible for overseeing operational delivery across the client's diverse residential portfolio, spanning purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) and Build-to-Rent (BTR) assets across multiple regions.

The position required exceptional leadership to standardise operational excellence, drive financial performance, and cultivate a resident-centric culture across their nationwide team of property managers and front-line staff.

Solution

The search required a candidate with proven senior leadership experience in large-scale residential operations, ideally spanning both student accommodation and multi-family rental sectors.

The ideal profile included expertise in multi-site operational leadership, strong commercial and financial management capabilities, experience working with institutional investors, and demonstrable success in building high-performing teams across geographically dispersed locations.

Given the client's relationship with their parent company, the role also required someone who could collaborate effectively with development teams to ensure operational considerations were integrated into design and planning processes for future assets.

The team designed and implemented a bespoke search strategy that combined several innovative approaches:

• Strategic talent pool analysis
• Leadership capability modelling
• International search scope
• Personalised candidate pack

Results

• Successfully appointed a candidate with dual experience across both PBSA and BTR sectors, previously having managed portfolios of comparable scale in both asset classes
• Completed the entire search process within 8 weeks
• Achieved a 95% engagement rate with targeted passive candidates, reflecting the compelling opportunity and effective outreach strategy