The FM Fix

Luca Rizzo’s journey started on the floor at Bill’s Restaurants, working front-of-house, learning the pace, the pressure, and what great customer experience actually looks like day to day. 

His career has developed over time, growing through roles on the floor, into management, and eventually into property and estates. 

That progression gives him a different perspective on estates. He understands how sites operate day to day, what teams actually need, and how even small issues can impact the overall experience, for both staff and customers. 

In this conversation, we talk about what it’s like stepping into estates from operations, how to build credibility in a role that supports the whole business, and what he’s learned from being part of a team recently recognised as Team of the Year. 

It’s a look at estates from the inside out, shaped by experience on the floor, and built through consistency, teamwork, and a clear understanding of what good looks like in practice. 

Technology plays a bigger role in facilities management than ever before, but with so many tools, platforms and new developments, it can be difficult to separate what’s genuinely useful from what simply sounds good on paper. 

Paul Bullard has spent his career working on the technology behind FM, helping to design and deliver systems that support maintenance, compliance and day-to-day operations across a wide range of environments. 

Now Chief Product Officer at SFG20, his work focuses on shaping how maintenance standards and digital tools come together, ensuring that what’s built is not only technically sound, but practical for the teams using it. 

In this conversation, we explore how FM technology has evolved, where it’s delivering real value, and where it can fall short. We also look at the role of data, the growing influence of AI and what facilities teams should be thinking about as the industry continues to change. 

Facilities and estate management isn’t short on responsibility, but it is short on honest conversations about leadership, confidence, and who gets heard. 

In this episode of The FM Fix, we’re joined by Louie-Mae Gibson, then Estate Director at Knight Frank, to talk about what leadership in FM really looks like when you strip away job titles and outdated expectations. 

We explore how FM leaders can build credibility without burning out, why equity and inclusion aren’t “nice-to-haves” but operational issues, and how better cultures lead to better outcomes across estates.  

Louie-Mae also shares insights from her journey through HR, operations, and senior estate leadership and why celebrating good FM work matters more than the industry often admits. 

Facilities management isn’t always strategy decks and big transformation plans. 

Sometimes, it’s blocked toilets. Broken lights. Leaking roofs. And fixing problems before anyone else even notices they exist. 

Craig brings a different perspective to FM, with over 15 years of global logistics experience, he’s worked in high-pressure environments where failure wasn’t an option, managing the movement of everything from vehicle parts to critical, life-saving supplies across complex international operations, including deployments to the Falkland Islands, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. 

Since moving into the civilian sector, Craig has helped launch major logistics sites, consolidate operations into high-performing hubs, and now leads facilities as Head of Facilities at Westcoast Limited, keeping multiple sites running safely, efficiently and without disruption. 

In this session, Craig shares what it really means to be a hands-on FM leader, learning on the job, subcontracting where needed and focusing on the details that most people overlook but rely on every single day.

FM is changing fast. The expectations are higher, the skillset is broader, and the route into the profession is anything but clear. 

In this episode of The FM Fix, we're joined by Emma Bellingham, then Head of Academy at IWFM, to unpack what training and qualifications really mean for modern facilities managers, and where the industry still needs to catch up.

We talk about why traditional career paths no longer fit the FM role, how qualifications should support real-world capability (not just compliance), and what skills will matter most over the next decade. 

Emma also shares advice for FMs who feel stuck, overlooked, or unsure where to invest in their development, plus what organisations can do better if they actually want to retain talent. 

As Maintenance Manager (now Facilities Manager!) at Flat Iron, Lily oversees the maintenance function across hospitality sites where uptime, safety, and guest experience are non-negotiable. From urgent reactive issues to planned upgrades, refurbishments, and contractor performance, her role sits right at the intersection of operations, finance, and people management.

In this episode of The FM Fix, we talk about what it really takes to keep busy hospitality spaces running smoothly behind the scenes. We unpack how to balance reactive maintenance with long-term improvements, how to build contractor partnerships that actually deliver value, and how communication can make or break day-to-day operations. Lily also shares lessons from working in fast-paced, multi-site environments, managing budgets, and staying calm when downtime simply isn’t an option.