Expertise
Built by people who
have run one.
Every department we build is designed by somebody who did that job for twenty years first. That is the whole method — you cannot automate a function you have never had to answer for.
You go home. It doesn't.Every promise gets a row and a due dateAnswered the same day, not the next working dayA drawing before the quoteUnverifiable is never a passNine desks, one address eachNothing is sent that a human cannot read backThe folder exists before you price itYou go home. It doesn't.Every promise gets a row and a due dateAnswered the same day, not the next working dayA drawing before the quoteUnverifiable is never a passNine desks, one address eachNothing is sent that a human cannot read backThe folder exists before you price it
The premise
You cannot automate a job you have never had to answer for
Automation consultancies are usually staffed by technologists who have read about your industry. The result is a system that automates the org chart rather than the work: beautifully engineered, and wrong in the places where the trade has its own rules.
Hobfolk is staffed the other way round. Our department leads are operators — the people who ran estimating, quality, logistics and credit control for a couple of decades and know exactly which twenty per cent of the job carries all the risk. The engineering is the easy half.
240
years
Combined operating experience across the senior team.
26
average
Years in the field, per department lead.
9
disciplines
Commercial, technical, quality, trade, finance, creative, safety.
0
juniors
Every department is led by the person who designed it.
Key personnel
Who designs each department
Every department is led by somebody who ran that function for two decades before they designed a system to do it.
01
Gordon Aitcheson
Managing Director
Systems design & company operations
32 years in the field
Thirty years designing and running the commercial machinery of design-and-build businesses — the enquiry-to-cash chain, the estimating discipline behind it, and the handover documentation at the end. Has stood up back offices for fabrication groups, attraction contractors and specialist manufacturers, and has been on the receiving end of every failure this company is built to prevent.
02
Cheryl Okonjo-Baird
Operations Director
Programme, capacity & delivery
28 years in the field
Ran production floors and install programmes for themed and experiential build, up to nine-figure project portfolios across multiple facilities. Specialism is the seam nobody owns — the handover between concept, fabrication and site, which is where work is actually lost.
03
Rav Sandhu
Technical Director
Drawing office, engineering & visualisation
24 years in the field
Twenty-four years in drawing offices serving fabrication and scenic build: general arrangements, setting-out, buildability, tolerance and the discipline of one model feeding every downstream sheet. Built the drawing-to-cost-sheet link that stops a workshop and a client being priced from different numbers.
04
Margaret Lisle
Head of Quality & Assurance
QMS, verification & audit
30 years in the field
Three decades in quality management for manufacturing and construction. Document control, nonconformance, corrective action with a genuine root cause, and audit programmes that find things. Designed our verification layer on one principle: the party that did the work never marks it.
05
Ian Brennan
Head of Trade & Logistics
Freight, customs & compliance
31 years in the field
Thirty-one years moving awkward, heavy and high-value goods internationally. Incoterms, commodity classification, origin and preference, timber chain-of-custody, ISPM 15, and the claim windows that quietly kill most carrier claims. Has cleared consignments into most places you would want to install something.
06
Yasmin Halabi
Head of Compliance
CDM, safety documentation & contracts
22 years in the field
Twenty-two years producing the paperwork that lets work proceed — task-specific RAMS, COSHH, CDM duty-holder information, O&M and handover packs. Also owns our confidentiality discipline: nothing visual reaches a supplier before an agreement comes back signed.
07
Peter Ashworth
Financial Controller
Contract cash & credit control
27 years in the field
Twenty-seven years of contracting finance, which is a different animal from ordinary bookkeeping: applications for payment, the Construction Act notice regime, retention release, reverse charge and CIS. Built the chase ladder that gets invoices paid without the person who did the work ever having to ask.
08
Daniel Yau
Head of Commercial
Estimating, tenders & bids
26 years in the field
Twenty-six years estimating and bidding specialist fabrication and fit-out. Cost build-up, provisional sums, exclusions written where the information genuinely is not there, and prequalification packs kept current so a deadline is never lost to admin. Enforces the rule that no line is priced below the floor cost of making it exist.
09
Ruth Devlin
Head of Demand
Marketing, search & commercial visibility
19 years in the field
Nineteen years marketing businesses that make physical things, where the sales cycle is long and most work arrives through people who already know you. Technical site health before content, paid media judged on landing-page match rather than bid tinkering, and reporting that names what to stop.
Sectors
Where this experience was earned
Design-and-build & specialist fabricationThemed entertainment & attractionsMuseums, exhibitions & visitor centresRetail and hospitality fit-outManufacturing & batch productionMarine and outdoor environmentsEvents, activations & touringPublic realm & wayfinding
Your team
How we work with your people
We are not a training company and we do not run change programmes. Your team already knows how to do their jobs; what they lack is hands.
So each of your people gets a digital partner — a departmental counterpart that carries the chores, drafts the routine work, and remembers everything. Your estimator stops re-typing specifications and starts checking numbers. Your project manager stops writing the same email eleven times and starts looking at the programme.
There is nothing to attend. People learn the system by working alongside it, in the same way anybody learns from a competent colleague — by seeing how they do it.
Talk to the person who would design your version of this.
Not a salesperson with a deck. The department lead, who will tell you inside half an hour whether we are the right shape for your problem.
