New Operations Manager joins Principle as business growth continues

Brett Williams, Andrew Winstanley & Joe Jobson

Andrew Winstanley has been appointed as property operations manager at the UK’s fastest growing residential management company, taking its headcount to 30 within three years of its launch.

He will run all property operations at Principle, sitting between the directors and the property management and customer service teams.

Mr Winstanley comes with a wealth of knowledge from a career that most recently saw him as a senior property manager at Pennycuick Collins, looking after some of its larger and most complicated developments.

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Before that he spent three years as an area manager at First Port, the largest managing agent in the UK, looking after properties in the retirement sector.

Mr Winstanley has also spent more than eight years at Curry & Partners and CPBigwood, working up from property manager to operations manager.

It was here that he first worked closely with Principle’s managing director Brett Williams and co-director Joe Jobson.

Mr Williams said: “Andrew has a wealth of experience and is truly knowledgeable in our sector.

“Like myself and Joe, he’s is an ardent believer in doing property management properly and we therefore feel sure that he is the perfect fit for us in this role.

“All too often managing agents just say ‘that’ll do’, but here at Principle we want to say ‘that’ll do nicely’ about all our services, where providing that extra percentage of effort makes a real difference.

“We’ve invested heavily in technology and continue to work systems hard to generate efficiencies to free people up. With Andrew’s appointment we are now even more excited about what 2021 will bring for us as a business.”

Mr Winstanley’s earlier career included an eight-year period at Sanctuary Housing where he worked as a leasehold officer in the public sector.

Mr Jobson said: “Having previously worked closely with Andrew, I was always impressed by both his calm nature and his technical expertise. I’m now really excited about working with him again.

“His wide experience in the property sector will be a real strength, especially the great customer engagement culture from his time in the housing association sector.

“We are impressed by the customer focus he had to employ in the specialist retirement sector, and this will be useful at Principle where we have a growing number of retirement management sites.”

Mr Winstanley is a West Bromwich Albion season ticket holder who was originally from Great Barr and now lives in Bearwood.

The father-of-three said: “I’ve always had huge respect for Brett and Joe and am so impressed by what they have achieved here at Principle in such a short time.

“I’ve watched their progress closely as they set up a new business based on previous experience but with determination for a fresh start aimed at much higher ideals.

“After in-depth discussions ahead of my appointment it’s clear to me that Principle is set up to do property management in a modern way as far as systems and procedures are concerned.

“But crucially, Principle operates with traditional professionalism and insists on high levels of customer service, and this very much makes it a business I want to be a part of.”

Principle Estate Management was launched in 2018 by Mr Williams, a past-chairman of the Association of Residential Managing Agents who has nearly 30 years of experience in the sector.

The company has since grown to look after a portfolio in excess of 6,500 units in over 200 developments across the UK.

Mr Williams explained that now Principle was an established operator, it needed to bring in experts to help lead, mentor and support its growing team as it entered the next stage of its development.

He said the company’s operations board would now comprise of himself, Mr Jobson, Mr Winstanley and finance manager Paul Richardson, bringing more structure to the senior leadership team.

He added: “Andrew’s new role helps with part of our strategy for the next stage  growth, and the timing is perfect at the beginning of the year as everyone has a positive outlook for the 12 months ahead.

“Having a property operations manager will free myself and Joe up to spend more time with clients and on developing both the core business and expanding into new areas of property management.

“We need to ensure our core business continues to offer great service as the client base expands, and Andrew will be key to this, overseeing the day-to-day property management functions.”

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