AA PROJECTS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Board Director
- Member of the Board of Directors
While Chris joined AA Projects in 2006, his career started at Atkins where he was a graduate and progressed to their Head of Property and Surveying for the Northwest region.
Chris is a statutory board director at AA Projects, a chartered building surveyor, a chartered environmentalist, and a certified principal designer. He acts as a voice for health and safety and sustainability at board level. Chris leads our Schools, Academies and Further Education sectors, as well as working across multiple sectors.
When he first joined the business, the building surveying team was our smallest division. Chris has helped us create a national team of ‘home grown talent' who understand how to deliver a quality product. Our critical mass of consultants and geographic spread enables us to deliver major national and international programmes of work across multiple sectors.
Job Titles:
- CHARTERED SURVEYOR
- Director
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director in the Building Surveying Team
Darren is a Director in the Building Surveying team at AA Projects. He leads on the delivery of our educational and health schemes as well as leading the division across the whole of the North West.
Darren leads on all aspects of L&D for AA Projects, alongside the graduate development programme, focusing on the training and mentoring our inhouse apprentices and graduates.
Darren has over 20 years' experience as a building surveyor, specialising in design and refurbishment, plus new build developments across private and public sectors. He also specialises in the delivery of large asset condition surveys, defect investigations, due diligence survey reports and acting as an expert witness relating to building compliance/construction/contract and defect related matters.
When he joined AA Projects from Atkins back in 2007, Darren worked closely with Chris Thorpe to expand the Building Surveying offer across the business and across the UK. He has delivered major survey programmes for many blue chip clients, such as Bupa, Wolseley and the Court Services to name just a few.
He helps coordinate our project delivery across key clients and programmes of work, including NHS Property Services, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and the ESFA Condition Improvement Fund.
Darren is a keen cyclist and playing records, but not usually at the same time.
Projects that Darren has worked on include, the University of Birmingham and University of Manchester property portfolio and delivering hundreds of design, refurbishment and expansion projects within the School Academy sector.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Head of the Building Surveying Division at AAP
In his role as Director, David leads the BS teams in the Midlands to offer bespoke solutions that are specifically tailored to our clients' requirements. David joined AA Projects in 2009 after being a partner at Craig Associates in Liverpool.
Ian has gained over 25 years' experience working within the construction sector across both the public and private sectors' and has provided professional quantity surveyor, cost consultancy, project monitoring, project management and employer's agent services on a wide range of complex projects.
After working with our MD Ken at both Nisbet LLP and Sweett Group, Ian joined the company in 2017 as a Director, focusing on growing our offer across from the Midlands and down to London and the Southeast. We've since created a buoyant and expanding business across these regions.
Ian heads our Oxford and Birmingham offices and is also Higher Education sector lead for the business and works closely with all of the AA Projects divisions delivering a quality and client facing services across the Education, Healthcare, Residential, Government, Leisure, Industrial and Defence sectors.
Becoming a Chartered Quantity Surveyor almost didn't happen for Ian, who played Country Cricket and had long-term trials for Southampton when playing semi-professional football. As well as playing and watching sport, Ian is very family orientated and loves his holidays to the USA and in particular, California.
James joined the business in 2017 and has been a Director since 2018. Leading a team of asset management, facilities management, and specialist technical consultants he works closely with our Building Surveying, Sustainability and Cost Management teams. James is client driven and works for large investors, developers, and Government Departments with a focus on providing robust technical advice on the management of their asset and property portfolios.
James has previously worked for infrastructure developer-investors, Private equity funds and International Consultants.
James has extensive experience in Social Infrastructure sectors such as Education, Health, Government and Leisure, with experience of major schemes across the Globe. James and the team work hard to provide a bespoke advisory service to our clients.
James was named RICS Young Surveyor of The Year for Asset and Facilities Management in 2019 and was Highly Commended in the Future Leader of the Year category at the 2020 Partnership Awards. He's a keen skier and runner, having taken part in multiple 10k races, as well as a keen cook.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
At AA Projects, Ken helps teams across the business to play in the right positions. He leads on the creation and generation of partnerships, both within the business, with clients and peer organisations. This has led to the business building strong relationships with partners in Northern and Eastern Europe, Canada, and the US.
Ken has been with the company since 2017 but has over 25-years of experience as a Project Director/Manager. Having previously worked at a major international consultancy, he brings a wealth of experience in multiple different sectors, gained whilst working across the globe. He joined the business as Managing Director, and led the management buy-out which involved a number of the current Director team investing in the future success of the business.
He currently supports the business by continuing to look for opportunities to improve the success of the firm for its clients, staff, and wider stakeholders. He leads on our Shadow Board initiative, as well as wider company training, mentoring and business expansion opportunities.
A keen cyclist with an expert knowledge of the Yorkshire Road network, Ken is still coming to terms with being outpaced by his sons. Examples of Ken's recent key projects include hospitality projects in Glasgow, Budapest, Amsterdam, and Birmingham.
When asked what our clients can expect from working with Ken, he said "a commitment to your aims and objectives".
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Mark is an award-winning practitioner of partnering principles with extensive experience in procurement across the construction industry. Sits on a national advisory panel of IHEEM he provides active membership role, providing formal reviews of healthcare estates guidance and whitepapers to inform NHS policy.
He is a Statutory Board Director for AA Projects and a national lead for healthcare, together with heading up our Strategic Management Consultancy and Project Management Divisions.
Mark joined AA Projects in 2017, growing our healthcare pipeline significantly since coming to us from Sweett Group . It is now the largest independent sector at AAP with key clients including NHS property services, NHS Improvement, Manchester Teaching Hospitals, Birmingham, and Solihull STP, and is leading the £1.1bn PMO for Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System as part of the national New Hospital Programme.
Fun fact: Mark was a semi professional footballer, but had to retire at 23 due to an injury.
Business philosophy: Having studied a Masters in Business Administration: Construction and Real Estate, and a Better Business Case Accredited practitioner, Mark champions organisational learning and how both ourselves and our client organisations can grow from single loop and double loop learning practices.
Mike has been working as an Employers Agent and Quantity Surveyor in the Northwest since 1988 and is one of our directors at AA Projects.
After working together at Davis Langdon, Mike continues to work closely with Neil Fyles and Steve Jones. Together they've grown the divisions turnover and develop the QS team, diversifying AA Projects' offer.
A specialist in cost planning, risk management, procurement and development management, Mike supports our clients with growing and accelerating development programmes.
Mike joined AA Projects to establish a residential team in 2013 and to help us diversify as an organisation. He has since developed the sector at AAP to become one of our largest, with a team of over 30 consultants delivering projects nationwide and delivering over 20,000 units.
Our first residential client was Clwyd Alyn for whom we have since delivered over 2,000 units. He now supports national home builders including Home Group and leads on key frameworks.
A season ticket holder at Anfield for over 35 years and proud owner of a chocolate Labrador called Alfie, Teams meetings can occasionally be interrupted by the odd bark when working from home! He manages the capture and promotion of Social Value activities at APP, including compliance with the National TOMs.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Neil is the Director of Cost Management and also Business Development and Marketing, supporting our extensive national team of cost managers, in providing a carefully tailored consultancy service.
Previously a Partner at Davis Langdon, Neil joined AA Projects in 2012 and now has 26 years' professional experience spanning both the public and private sectors, working across industries such as regeneration, industrial, commercial, leisure, hospitality, logistics, health, education (SE, FE and HE) and residential.
In his spare time Neil enjoys travel and culture and is one of the most well-travelled people at AA Projects, having travelled through Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. Neil is also a season ticket holder at Everton FC, for more years then he cares to remember, which is useful as there are many seasons that he would prefer to forget.
Neil has expertise across almost all industries and sectors, from DHL, Birmingham Dental Hospital, Bolton Octagon, Parliamentary Estates, JV North, UCLan and Loreto College. He brings his cross-sector learning to project delivery, and a breadth of project delivery skills to support our key clients.
Neil understands and recognises the importance of providing clients with solutions that respond to their core business needs. Neil prides himself on ensuring a consistence and quality of service offering. Neil understands the key drivers and how to achieve best value not only in the short term also in terms of long term strategic and sustainable solutions.
Job Titles:
- ACCOUNTANT
- Company Secretary
- Director
- Member of the Board of Directors
Joining AA Projects back in 2008, Neil supported the business through a Management Buy Out, working with the previous Managing Director, Paul Allen, and the incoming team. Neil's role has been central in maintaining the smooth transition of personnel and providing the company the footing to grow at a canter.
As Finance and Operations Director, Neil ensures the scalability of our projects and takes a forward-looking approach to the company's growth. He oversees our Risk Management function internally to help protect ourselves and our clients from risk.
Neil was leading a finance team of 13 people aged just 26 and has worked his way up over the past 20 years. Neil has a strong eye for detail and is regularly called upon to lend critical thought to problems. He has a passion for supporting those who are newly qualified to thrive.
Richard is responsible for the establishment and management of the Energy and Sustainability Division at AA Projects.
He joined from Edmund Kirby in 2007, where he was an established partner, coming in to lead the Liverpool office of Building Surveyors.
Richard is a proud Welsh National and native speaker. He has supported the national football team through many international competitions.