New senior hires drive Ramboll’s Building Services division forwards

Austen Bates, Head of Building Performance 

With a mechanical engineering background, Austen’s career has seen him passionately advocate for sustainable engineering solutions that positively impact communities and the natural environment. Having established the sustainability focused consultancy, 3ADAPT, Austen has developed his expertise through positions with Buro Happold and more recently, TFT where he was an Associate.  

Joining Ramboll’s sustainable solutions team, Austen will help drive better building performance for clients from the early strategic stages of the project through to post occupation evaluations. His mission is to ensure that buildings are optimised to perform at their best, and to make their occupiers feel at their best. 

James Willis, Director 

From mechanical engineer, to project management and business development, James has enjoyed a varied 26-year career in engineering with How Engineering, MITIE, Balfour Beatty and NG Bailey. James joins Ramboll from Wates Construction where he worked as a business development manager.

At Ramboll, James will represent our Birmingham office, building strong relationships with our stakeholders and promoting the flexible and extensive propositions available. He cites our foundation-ownership as a big draw to work for Ramboll, due to the freedom it provides to make decisions that are best for our clients and the company. He relishes the opportunity to positively contribute to the sustainability of projects and programmes in line with Ramboll’s mission to create sustainable societies. 

Speaking on the new appointments Andrew Henderson, UK Head of Buildings said:

"Over the past few years we have been making significant investments to grow and develop our Building Services team to help support clients create high performing buildings. I am really pleased to welcome Austen, Catherine and James to our business, each of whom bring outstanding technical expertise, and a keen desire to contribute to the positive long-term development of societies.”