Residential Asset & Property Lead - 12-month fixed-term contract

The Howard de Walden Estate•London, CA

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Howard de Walden Estate (HdWE) is embarking on a business-wide modernisation programme, to revitalise ways of working, data, systems and processes. Project Elevate has been initiated to replace the current Property Management and Accounting system (MRI Platform X), in place for nearly three decades. The programme will deliver a unified, scalable and supportable SaaS platform covering finance, property management, procurement, project accounting and reporting. It is a strategically important initiative that will fundamentally change how the organisation operates and how colleagues interact with core systems. Project Elevate is a multi‑year transformation programme to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management as the organisation’s core ERP platform, integrated with existing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and M-Files Document Management applications. The project will also incorporate specialist Independent Software Vendor (ISV) solutions, including Yavica’s FlexProperty and SignUp’s ExFlow products. This role is specifically concerned with Phase One of Project Elevate, which is expected to last around 12 months starting April 2026, with a target go‑live of April 2027. This role is a business‑side Subject Matter Expert position for a residential property professional who can represent Residential Property and Asset Management interests during Project Elevate. It is suited for an individual who is motivated to broaden their skills by contributing to a major ERP transformation programme. The postholder will support requirements gathering, process design, data transformation and readiness activities for residential property management and asset management, ensuring that future processes are grounded in practical, real‑world operation of residential and mixed‑use assets. HdWE’s in‑house model requires effective interaction with teams including Asset Management, Facilities Management, Lettings, Projects & Planning, Legal, Finance and Investment. The postholder will also act as a key bridge between the existing residential property team and the technical project delivery team. The role is not a technical systems configuration role; it exists to help the business successfully adopt the new platform through process standardisation, data improvement and user readiness. A key requirement of this role is to champion the programme principle of “adopt, not adapt” — adopting standard solution capability and best practice wherever possible to protect ease of use, upgrade pathways and long‑term sustainability. Customisation should be treated as the exception and only pursued where absolutely necessary, as a critical business differentiator.

Requirements

Professional background in Residential Property and/or Asset Management, or similar discipline.
Strong understanding of property operations and customer/tenant‑related processes, and confidence explaining how work happens in practice.
Ability to support standardisation and process change, recognising that ways of working will change as part of Project Elevate.
Strong data literacy and attention to detail, with confidence reviewing and improving property/customer datasets.
Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to think laterally.
Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, including management and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with colleagues across multiple business functions.

Nice To Haves

Experience with valuations, lease negotiations, rent reviews or renewals.
Experience contributing to refurbishment and redevelopment appraisals and coordinating delivery teams through to handover.
Exposure to change programmes, systems replacement, structured process improvement, or data transformation work.
Familiarity with structured testing / readiness concepts (e.g., SIT/UAT, cutover, hypercare), even if not previously owned as a specialist.
Interest in emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, autonomous agents, and automation.

Responsibilities

Act as the Residential Asset & Property domain representative for Project Elevate, ensuring future processes reflect operational reality and support consistent, standardised ways of working.
Use knowledge of relevant regulations, statutory compliance obligations, professional body codes and the UK (including Westminster) legal and regulatory landscape to inform discussions on system requirements, controls, evidence capture and auditability.
Work closely with colleagues across Residential Property Management and relevant Asset Management stakeholders to articulate current practices, pain points and improvement opportunities, and translate these into clear future‑state outcomes.
Support the definition of how the organisation will track and manage ESG‑driven asset initiatives, ensuring sustainability objectives are embedded into asset and project workflows.
Support the interface between asset management and property management for mixed‑use buildings, ensuring clear accountability and coordinated decision-
Coordinate across internal teams (FM, Projects, Legal, Finance, Investment) to ensure occupier matters and asset initiatives are managed end‑to-end with clear ownership and escalation paths.
Work with Legal colleagues to ensure requirements and process design reflect appropriate governance, document control and evidencing.
Work with internal support stakeholders (including Director of Operations, Business Analysts and the IT Project Manager) to ensure requirements are captured clearly and progressed through delivery governance.
Reinforce the programme approach to deliver a manageable change and lay a solid foundation by adopting standard capability rather than recreating legacy processes.
Support decision‑making by helping stakeholders distinguish between essential requirements / true differentiators and preferences rooted in historic ways of working that should be addressed through process change, data improvements, or training.
Where deviation from standard is proposed, ensure the rationale is evidence‑based and aligned to long‑term maintainability.
Support review, augmentation and transformation of key Residential property and customer datasets (quality, completeness, structure and consistency), recognising that improved data is fundamental to standardised processes and better decision-
Participate in data validation activities and help define repeatable data standards that can be sustained in BAU.
Contribute to establishing practical ownership and governance for ongoing data quality post go-
Attend and contribute to workshops and discovery sessions, and support playback/validation of proposed future ways of working.
Support readiness activities across testing and go‑live phases and provide support to colleagues.
Support deployment activities and act as a key business point of contact during post go‑live hypercare to help stabilise and embed new processes.

Benefits

25 days holiday per year, plus statutory holidays and 3 discretionary days to cover the Christmas office closure.
Private medical insurance with Bupa.
Defined contribution pension scheme with 12.5% employer contributions.
Life assurance at 7x salary.
Group income protection scheme.
Interest free season ticket loan.
Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and wellbeing app “Help@hand”.
Cycle to work scheme.
Onsite gym with 7 weekly classes and 2 Wattbikes.
Regular staff socials and an annual company away day.
Free fruit and breakfast cereals.
Enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave policies (12-month qualifying period).
Hybrid working arrangements -minimum of 155 days in the office per year with minimum of 2 days (not fixed) per week in the office.