About Evolda

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With a career spanning  nearly two decades, co-founder James Hands, has considerable and wide-ranging experience and a comprehensive knowledge of surveying. 

After graduating from Birmingham City University, James started his career at DBK Group (now part of RPS). Being part of a smaller firm, he was involved in a broad range of surveying instructions, quickly taking on the management of complex projects. Early on in his career, James worked to streamline processes for his clients, offering a straight forward approach and better value. One of James’ stand out contributions was the composition of a schedule of rates for a Housing Association to replace a previous cumbersome version that was time inefficient. During this time James also qualified as a BREEAM Retail and Code for Sustainable Homes Assessor, which has served to underpin his knowledge of practical sustainability interventions. 

In 2010, James moved to GVA (Avison Young). Work was of a larger scale and it was being part of a larger team that provided James a more professional foundation to his outlook. During his time at GVA, James worked on some complex building surveys and planned maintenance surveys, including: Arena Birmingham, ICC and Birmingham’s ‘Beetham Tower’.

A new experience arose in 2014 when joining Malcolm Hollis (Hollis Global). Assignments were broad and quite often on different asset classes from residential homes to project monitoring of large-scale industrial sites. 

In 2015, Workman were looking to expand their building consultancy offer to Birmingham. James was brought in to lead the department and quickly established Workman’s place in the second city. Building a team of 14 strong, secured James' position as partner in the firm.

During his time at Workman, James worked on some high profile projects. He managed complex projects and building consultancy work at major shopping centres including: Bullring, Grand Central and Touchwood, managed various office refurbishments and completed and overseen numerous surveys, with higher profile buildings including: Touchwood, Star City, Five Ways Entertainment Centre and 103 Colmore Row. 

Tom's professional career started at Workman in 2015 in which he joined them as a Graduate based in their Manchester office, but after a short period of time he was assisting in the opening of Workman's new Birmingham office. 

Tom permanently relocated to Birmingham in early 2016 to join James as the second member of the Birmingham team. During his 7 years with Workman Tom passed his APC to be come a member of the RICS and progressed from Graduate Surveyor to Associate Director before commencing the  next chapter of professional carer. 

Tom joined Jones Lang Laselle (JLL)  in November 2021 as an Associate Director. During his time at JLL Tom managed his own team and being the national lead on Building Surveying services for a portfolio of major shopping centres across the UK.

During his professional career Tom has provided professional services/project management services across an array of sectors, with projects  of note including: agreeing a Landlord Schedule of Works for a  c.£8million scheme and acting in the role as Project Manager to deliver this, achieving a dilapidations reduction of £1.1million resulting in a settlement of £500k and delivering numerous smaller work packages.

 Ami is the Co-Founder and Company Secretary of Evolda. With a diverse professional background, Ami brings a unique blend of expertise from her previous careers to her role in the company.

Before co-founding Evolda, Ami spent several years teaching Psychology, where she also spent a period of time heading up the Social Sciences department and mentoring trainee teachers. 

Following her teaching career, she transitioned into the employability sector, working as a trainer, where she honed her skills in coaching, training, and organizational development.

As the Company Secretary, Ami plays a critical role in ensuring the smooth operation of the company, managing corporate governance, compliance, and administrative functions. Her previous experience in education and training has equipped her with a unique set of transferable skills that contribute to the quality of service that is delivered by Evolda to its clients.