The RICS has launched a new hunt for a chief executive to run the institution after its search for a director-general last year failed to deliver.
The return to a CEO position is an about-turn from Lord Bichard’s review into the governance and purpose of the RICS, published in June last year, but has been labelled a necessary shift to ensure the right leader is brought on to turn the RICS around.
In his review, Bichard called for the chief executive role to be ditched in favour of a director-general.
“Having a director-general rather than a chief executive reinforces that the people ultimately making the decisions are the members,” said Bichard.
However, the governing board has now agreed to restructure and re-advertise the role as CEO.
Martin Samworth, who was appointed as chair of the RICS’s new board in December and who will be tasked – alongside the new CEO – with rebuilding trust and pride in the RICS and transforming it into an institution fit for the future, said that ensuring the right calibre of person for the role, with international experience, a knowledge of the real estate sector and experience of running a company, was vital for the RICS.
While a number of candidates submitted applications for the £250,000 pa director-general role, only three made it through to interviews, with none successfully making it past the appointments panel.
“We need someone with real business skills who has run a business and has clear leadership skills,” said Samworth, adding that the new search needed to be international and that the successful candidate would not only have a strong knowledge of the real estate sector but would also have experience of working with government and the public sector.
Given the global nature of the RICS, which has more than 130,000 members across the world, Samworth said it was important that the search for the new leader was global, even though any chosen candidate would be required to relocate to the UK.
“Operational excellence is what we are trying to get to,” he added.
The new chief executive role will offer an annual salary of £300,000 with an on-target bonus of between 25-50%.
GatenbySanderson will be retained in its role as headhunter for the position, with Ferguson Partners brought on alongside to ensure a real estate specialist is among the candidates. The firm recently successfully recruited former TIAA Institutional Financial Services chief executive Ron Pressman to the position of global chief executive of the Urban Land Institute.
Former RICS chief executive Sean Tompkins was forced to resign from the organisation in late 2021 following an independent review by Alison Levitt KC into the dismissal in 2019 of four non-executive directors who had voiced concerns over the internal handling of a critical BDO report. Tompkins also faced criticism over his £510,000 remuneration package as chief executive, which in 2019 included £250,300 in bonuses.
The return of the CEO role has been agreed by the governing council, however, and is understood to have received the seal of approval from some of the most vocal critics of the RICS over the past few years.
“This role is a critical role, and it is vital the RICS can appoint someone who can achieve all that is needed to deliver its roadmap of improvement,” said one source. “The CEO title is the right one. They will be running an enterprise.”
The RICS put together a panel of surveyors and laypeople to select both the new chair (Samworth) and then director-general back in October 2022. That panel included former Strutt & Parker senior partner Andy Martin, recently retired CBRE veteran Michael Brodtman, arbitrator Gaynor Warren-Wright, HR specialist Harriet Kemp, leadership expert Gillian Stamp and senior civil servant Marta Phillips.
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