Deborah Rowland Scholarship

In a special event on September 17th in London, four new 2025 recipients were announced as winners of the Deborah Rowland Scholarship, dedicated to discovering and nurturing emerging talent in the FM sector

Deborah Rowland, Director of Public Affairs at Sodexo, launched the programme last year, to provide disadvantaged young talent with financial and mentoring support. The Deborah Rowland Scholarship is backed by the IWFM Foundation to offer recipients the opportunity to become tomorrow’s leaders. Those selected by the scheme’s judges receive funding to study for and obtain an appropriate IWFM regulated qualification.

A former IWFM Facilities Manager of the Year, Rowland, who has been diagnosed with an advanced cancer, instigated the initiative with a donation of her own money.

Introducing the awards Rowland said: “We need to make sure that we keep this profession alive, we’ve got a lot of people that are at retirement age in our community, and we need to bring more people into it. It’s always been a problem to make sure FM is something that people know about and this award is just the tip of the iceberg in helping bringing people from different backgrounds into the role of WFM, give them a qualification so they get started on a path that’s given me such a career in such a great industry with lots of lovely people.”

2025 WINNERS

This year, following the success of the inaugural 2024 scheme the programme has been expanded to award four scholarships. This expansion has been made possible through funding from WFM training provider Xenon Group, alongside donations from the IWFM Rising FMs network and other volunteering groups.

Beating dozens of applications, the 2025 recipients are:

• Lamine Drame, formerly Area Manager South, British Council.
• Nick Hardwick, Help Desk Administrator, SEE Services.
• Joseph Beekman, Retail Operations Coordinator, Lloyds Banking Group.
• James Vause, Concierge, 4 Front Security.

The scholarship will fund IWFM regulated qualifications through IWFM Direct or through Xenon Group. The successful applicants will also have their IWFM registration fees waived. In addition, Xenon Group has donated two of the four places to study an IWFM-regulated qualification.

Recipients will receive mentoring and coaching throughout the scheme, while producing quarterly reports to track their development along the scholarship journey.

Rowland went on to thank the team of judges, Lucy Jeynes, Director, Larch Consulting; Oliver Jones, Managing Partner, Accelerated Infrastructure Capital; Debra Ward, Founder, Live Love Learn. Charlotte Bovill, Managing Director EMEA, JLL REMS; Sara Hodge, Global Director Experience, LSE; and Matt Chapman, CEO at SBFM, for their support.

THE AWARDS PROGRAMME

Commenting on the awards programme, Lucy Jeynes advised that apart from donating to the scheme those in the sector can also think about who they might be able to put forward for the scholarship in the future.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for people to get properly trained in our fabulous profession, so what we really want is people who can apply for this scholarship, knowing that this kind of support would really make a difference to their careers and their lives. It’s not too early to start thinking about who you know in your network that’s a colleague or a friend or somebody that you know outside of work.”

Fellow judge Debra Ward advised that what the judges were looking for from potential winners was whether they have the drive, the commitment and the passion to further their career in FM.

She said: “If you look at the people who won this year, they’re from all different walks of life, they’ve had different experiences, they have different backgrounds. We’re focused on finding people who are committed, who really understand that this is a massive opportunity for them to advance in their qualifications and professionalism.”

Jeynes confirmed that the qualifications can range from Level Two up to new Level Seven qualifications and pressed people to help those already on the programme.

“Could you give them a day of work experience in your company? Could they shadow you for a day? Could you give them a week of work experience? Could you let them interview you so that it would help with one of their assignments?”

Ward stressed that the profiles of candidates for the award can be as varied as possible as “this is an industry that is completely inclusive, the sky’s the limit”.

She also noted that recipients can hail from any area, whether a hard or soft services background. “We had one recipient who was in mechanical engineering but realised that there was a limit to what he could do, so he really wanted to move to the softer side. I think that being able to colour outside of the lines appealed to him, as he realised that there was an opportunity for him to grow into a leadership role.”

Rowland concluded: it’s been incredibly a big passion of mine to get a scholarship up and running, but I can’t have done any of this without support from the industry which has been amazing. So thank you IWFM and thank you to the IWFM Rising FMs community who have really put an umbrella around it.”

The scholarship will open again in 2026. If you’d like to donate, please visit www.justgiving.com/campaign/deborahrowlandscholarship2025.