Mace’s former fit out boss set to join rival Workplace Futures Group

Mace’s former fit out boss Stewart Ward is set to join rival fit out contractor Workplace Futures Group next month, Building can reveal.

Ward left Mace in September after seven years at the business, having joined the company from Overbury in 2018.

He will take up his new role on 8 December and will join Workplace Futures Group as its chief development officer sitting on the firm’s executive board.

Workplace Futures Group’s founder Toby Benzecry, who set up the company in 1991, said: “His brief is to spearhead the development of the business in two directions: externally to get us to Tier 1 level and, internally, to shape us to do those things.”

He added: “[Ward] is phenomenally well-connected and we needed someone with his skillset. Over the past year, it’s become very clear to me that we have the potential to be talked about in the same breath as [bigger rivals] and we’re not going to do that organically. We need to bring in people from outside.”

Workplace Futures Group has several subsidiaries including its main building and fit out arm Modus as well as retrofit business Ambit. It also has a furniture business called Platfform and a smaller fit out operation called Two.

In its last set of results, the firm posted an improved turnover of £165m in 2024 and saw pre-tax profit jump 126% to £4.3m. Employee numbers stood at 174.

Benzcrey said the firm, which recently moved to the Tide building on London’s South Bank having spent three decades in Victoria, is targeting a turnover of £240m and employee numbers of 200 by the time it files its next set of results which will be for the 15 months to 31 March 2026.

He said Workplace Futures Group is looking at posting monthly revenues equivalent to annual figures of £500m within three years and added: “We want to be one of the handful of firms that clients turn to for the larger projects. We think our time has come and we’re very clear on our ambition to do that which is why Stewart has joined us.”

Among the schemes it is currently working on are a £33m job at 38 Finsbury Square in the City for development manager London & Oriental while other ongoing projects include work for a law firm at 40 Leadenhall and a fund in the West End.

Around 80% of Workplace Futures Group’s work is in the capital with the remainder in the rest of the UK and a handful of jobs overseas.