The built environment accounts for around 40% of global emissions, and the market for making buildings perform better is growing fast. Our client, a private equity-backed group of specialist sustainable building consultancies, sits at the centre of that opportunity. The platform already spans MEP engineering, sustainability strategy and smart building services, and it is scaling quickly through acquisition.
The group now needs a CEO to lead the next phase. You will set the growth strategy, originate and execute M&A alongside an entrepreneurial investor, integrate acquired firms without breaking what made them worth buying, and shape a leadership team and culture across the group. Externally, you will be the face of the platform across the sustainable built environment sector.
This is a full-cycle mandate. You will lead the group from platform stage through to exit, with meaningful equity participation that means you share directly in the value you create.
The businesses joining the group are founder-led engineering consultancies. Winning the trust of those founders, and persuading the next ones to sell to you, is central to the job.
The bar is high, and we can only take forward candidates who can evidence both of the following:
- Hands-on leadership of an earlier-stage or founder-led business, where you personally drove growth without the infrastructure of a large organisation behind you.
- P&L leadership of an enterprise with revenues in excess of £100m, with the operational and governance discipline that scale demands.
Candidates with only one side of that equation, however strong, will not be a fit. Those who have both, and who want to build a market-leading group rather than run one that is already built, should apply in confidence.
