Willmott Dixon has appointed a pair of chief operating officers (COO) to drive growth in its housebuilding and interiors operations.

Above: Charlie Scherer (left) and Mike Hart

Charlie Scherer joins as COO at Willmott Dixon Housing, while Mike Hart switches from his current role as director within Willmott Dixon Capital Works to become COO at Willmott Dixon Interiors.

Mr Scherer returns to the company he left in 2004. He re-joins from Leadbitter where he was director responsible for the southwest and Wales. Prior to that, he was the national housing director at Rok.

In his new role, Mr Scherer will be responsible for developing a strategy for expanding Willmott Dixon’s housebuilding business throughout England and Wales. 

Willmott Dixon currently builds, on average, 1,500 new homes a year, mostly in the southeast and midlands, for a mix of local authority, registered provider, retirement home and private developer clients including its in-house development business Regen.

As COO at Willmott Dixon Interiors, Mr Hart will lead Willmott Dixon’s growth ambitions in the interiors market, where it is active across several sectors including commercial offices, education, hotel and retail.  It already has several repeat customers such as Tesco and is currently fitting-out 32 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a new eight-storey building for the London School of Economics. 

Both men will report to Willmott Dixon Capital Works divisional CEO John Frankiewicz ,who said: “Creating COOs for both our housing and interiors companies reinforces our structure with specialist leadership to complement our focus on work winning, excellence of operational delivery and  customer satisfaction.  We know that getting these things right will drive our success. We want to emerge from these tough trading conditions  as a stronger more efficient  business that has successfully ‘stayed ahead of the curve’, been capable of spotting trends and of maximising market opportunities as they present themselves.  Our new COOs are a fundamental part of making that happen.”

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