thepropcast

Following yet another fantastic response for our ConTech-focused 11th season, we are thrilled to unveil what we have planned for the upcoming season! 

As the demand for secure, energy-efficient developments continues to soar, the number of smart buildings worldwide is projected to climb from 45 million to 115 million by 2026. This is why for season 12 of the Propcast we are focusing on all things ‘smart’, where I will be joined by some of the leading Smart Building companies in the space, featuring the likes of Kode Labs, Haltian, Drone Deploy, Smart Spaces, and many, many more!  

Make sure to subscribe to the Propcast and leave us a 5* rating for this season - you’ll not want to miss it! 

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK, Europe, North America, MENA and Asia-Pacific.

In the second episode of Season 11 of the Propcast, host Louisa Dickins is joined by René Morkos, the Founder and CEO of ALICE Technologies, the world’s first construction optioneering platform and Shane Richardson, President of Lagrange, a management consulting firm providing project controls and program management services.

Episode Highlights:

• The founding story behind ALICE Technologies and the problems it was designed to solve

• The difference between the two products, ‘Alice Pre-Construction’ and ‘Alice Manage’ and their capabilities

• How Rene and Shane met and how they started working together

• How to use data to make better informed decisions

• The hesitancies the construction industry have around technology

• The issues they face and potential missed opportunities if they are brought in part way through a project, rather than the beginning

• Early innovators in the space and their impact on implementation and integration

• The biggest changes they have seen within the industry and what they predict over the next 20 years

• The importance of finding the right tool when trying to digitalise data to increase productivity

• Where they believe the skill gaps currently are in construction tech

• ALICE’s sustainability pledge

Resources:

• LMRE Global Recruitment and Search Consultancy

• LMRE YouTube Interviews

• PropTech Salary Report, LMRE 2022

• Bechtel

• Katerra

• Canadian Nuclear Labs

• Skanska

• Stanford University

Key Takeaways:

• What resources do you need to build to perform those tasks? That's the kind of information you give the system, and then the system generates 6 million different ways of building the project for you. - Rene

• I noticed that was one of the things that wasn't being leveraged; how can we use this data to make better informed decisions? -Shane

• A lot of times you're already 20 plus percent complete with a project, and there's a certain point where you can always minimise risk, minimise costs on a project, but as you progress on a project, the further you progress, you lose out on that opportunity. - Shane

• What's happening in construction today is what happened to manufacturing in the seventies and eighties. It's really becoming digitised. It's becoming integrated across the supply chain. - Rene

• I think that's one of the reasons why construction projects were plagued with delays, for decades and decades. It's because how do we fix that problem of being able to translate accurate data in its schedule, maintain it, and so ALICE takes care of that.  - Shane

• The way that I perceive it is that one of the major skill gaps is that construction is getting converted into algorithmic terms. And so that's something that's relatively new.  - Rene

• McKinsey article: over the last 20 years the industry as a whole has only only increased 1% in productivity. And the construction spending is about 13% of the world's GDP. And so you think about that, it's over 1.3 trillion in opportunity to try to leverage. - Shane

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Sponsors

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A Podcast Company is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with the right strategy, equipment, training, guidance and content to ensure you sound amazing while speaking to your niche audience and networking with your perfect clients. Get in touch hello@apodcastcompany.com

In the first episode of Season 11 of the Propcast, host Louisa Dickins is joined by Ibrahim Imam, and Sander Van de Rijdt, joint Co-Founders and Group CEO’s of PlanRadar.

PlanRadar is a digital platform for construction documentation, task management and communication. It is currently used in over 65 markets and has 120,000 construction professionals as users.

Ibrahim and Sander met at University and prior to PlanRadar founded other technology businesses together.

Episode Highlights:

• Why they launched PlanRadar and the industry issues they were trying to solve

• Why they believe the construction industry is so under digitalised 

• What helped them to achieve such rapid growth

• The decision making process behind why they move into certain regions

• How word of mouth is one of their most powerful business drivers

• How customer feedback dictates the development of the product

• Misunderstandings that can arise from conventional paper and pen usage

• Overcoming people’s hesitations with new technology

• Their aim to make the construction industry more ESG compliant

• The need for diversification within the industry to continue to drive growth and innovation

• Their future aspirations for PlanRadar

Resources:

• LMRE Global Recruitment and Search Consultancy

• LMRE YouTube Interviews

• PropTech Salary Report, LMRE 2022

Shout Outs:

• Constantin Kock

• Domagoj Dolinsek

• Clemens Hammerl

Key Takeaways:

• We decided to get on that mission to try to improve the lives of all the people out there on the construction sites and in the real estate projects. - Sander

• We have around 20,000 customers, which is a lot. But when you realise that there are around 2.5 million potential customers just in Europe, then it's nothing. - Sander

• But what PlanRadar has figured out throughout the last few years is to make the customisation level that every organisation requires,  to really meet their own processes. - Ibrahim

• We hired last quarter, I think 134 new people. We plan to hire this quarter, 82 new people. So we're still growing. - Sander

• PlanRadar is a tool that everybody can now download from the App store or the Play store and just instantly use it and start adding value to their corporations. - Ibrahim

• The main lesson is if you want to build a successful company, it's all about the people that you hire. Because a good team can deliver good results. Simple as that. - Ibrahim
  
  

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Sponsors

Launch Your Own Podcast

A Podcast Company is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with the right strategy, equipment, training, guidance and content to ensure you sound amazing while speaking to your niche audience and networking with your perfect clients. Get in touch hello@apodcastcompany.com

We had an incredible response to the last season where we focused on ESG within Proptech. We wanted to follow up with something equally as exciting and we’re happy to announce a brand new focus for this season of the Propcast. 

This season we’ll be taking a deep dive into the exciting vertical of ConTech. Our host Louisa Dickens will be speaking with some brilliant leaders in the ConTech space over the next 10 episodes, sharing their industry insights on the trends in the market and their predictions for the future of Construction Technology. 

Make sure to subscribe to the Propcast and leave us a 5* rating for this season - you’ll not want to miss it! 

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Summary: In the final episode of Season 10 of the Propcast, host Louisa Dickins is joined by Daniel Stephens, Senior Partner and Farzana Huysman, Junior Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company.

Daniel and Farzana share what their roles at McKinsey & Company involve and the risks and strategies they’re spending most of their time on. The guests discuss the common themes and questions they get asked by clients - including finance, real estate and insurance.

In this episode you will hear about decarbonisation strategies McKinsey and Company have been focusing on and how their efforts compare to other organisations in the space. 

Resources:

• LMRE Global Recruitment and Search Consultancy
• LMRE YouTube Interviews
• PropTech Salary Report, LMRE 2022

Companies Mentioned:

• Measurabl
• British Land
• Hillbreak

Shout Outs:

• Jon Lovell
• Matt Ellis

Key Insights From This Episode:  

• We’re shifting to a regime where insights into sustainability topics are shifting from voluntary to mandated - Daniel
• Hiring new talent is of course extremely important, but I believe that in a couple of years time everyone is going to need some level of proficiency on climate - Farzana
• The landscape is moving so fast and that's not something we’re used to in the real estate industry, therefore a different skill set is required to understand the technical solutions and how they can monetise - Daniel

About Our Guests:

Daniel Stephens:

Daniel Stephens is a Senior Partner in McKinsey & Company’s Washington, D.C., office. He is the Global Co-leader of McKinsey’s Climate and ESG Finance Practice and serves financial institutions in North America and around the world on topics relating to credit risk, regulatory compliance, disclosures, reputational risk, and business building with respect to climate and ESG topics. 

Dan’s recent work includes standing up the climate risk program at a global trillionaire bank; conducting climate stress testing at a major North American bank; working with multiple banks on ESG and climate regulatory response; and building an ESG-led business model for a large global bank. 

Outside of ESG and climate, Dan serves a broad range of clients across the commercial financial services space, as well as several public finance entities, including financial regulators, government lending programs, and government distribution programs. 

Dan holds an A.B. in History from Princeton University and a J.D. with honours from Harvard Law School. He is a founding board member of Foster America, a not-for-profit that serves at-risk youth and child welfare agencies.

Farzana Huysman:

Farzana Huysman is a project manager in McKinsey & Company’s London office, where she focuses on serving financial institutions on sustainability, covering topics such as financing of decarbonisation and new green businesses, assessment and adaptation to physical climate risk, and de-risking the energy transition. 

Farzana’s recent work includes scaling transition finance capabilities at an emerging markets bank; supporting growth and innovation of climate solutions for a global insurance broker; and assessing implications of physical climate risk for a European property insurer. Beyond financial institutions, Farzana has supported strategy and digital transformation efforts for clients in life sciences and shipping.

Farzana’s background is in engineering, with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cambridge, and previous work in building engineering. She co-leads the London office’s pro-bono support for a UK charity tackling global poverty.

About McKinsey & Company:

McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm. They are the trusted advisor to the world's leading businesses, governments, and institutions. 

They work with leading organisations across the private, public and social sectors. Their scale, scope, and knowledge allow them to address problems that no one else can. They have deep functional and industry expertise as well as breadth of geographical reach. They are passionate about taking on immense challenges that matter to their clients and, often, to the world. 

They work with their clients as they do with their colleagues. They build their capabilities and leadership skills at every level and every opportunity. They do this to help build internal support, get to real issues, and reach practical recommendations. They bring out the capabilities of clients to fully participate in the process and lead the ongoing work.

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Timestamps:

[2:03] Daniel: Can you tell us more about what your role is?

• I run our climate sustainable finance practice and a huge part of that is real estate finance. We work with big real estate investors, insurance firms and asset managers helping them answer how sustainability is going to impact their financing business and what they can do about it.

[3:07] Farzana: Can you tell us what led you to McKinsey and what is your role?

• My background is in mechanical engineering but within McKinsey I work at the intersection of financial institutions and sustainability. So, essentially working with banks and insurers looking at how the sector can help to unlock the net zero transition. 

[4:27] Daniel: Are risks always visible in a portfolio and how do you assess risk when it comes down to climate?

• I like to think about what the financial impacts are in properties today and how they may manifest.
• We’re interested in things like whether the expectation of future physical risk causes potential buyers to devalue this property now, therefore the need to anticipate future impacts.

[7:29] Farzana: What do you spend most of your time doing?

• Essentially, the bulk of the work I am focusing on is working with, for example banks, that have set net zero commitments and are trying to reduce their finance emissions. 
• They can do this by either divesting any high emitting assets or lending that they’re doing or we can support them in investing in technologies that help to reduce the emissions of their existing assets.

[9:49] Daniel: What are the risks associated with transitioning to net-zero?

• A change in public policy is one of the largest risks and it is not always foreseeable as they rely on political processes.  
• Public policy can cause certain goods or services to rise in price and therefore be consumed less.

[12:07] Farzana: Would you like to add anything to the risks associated with transitioning to net-zero?

• One of the big things to highlight is data, in order for a bank to work out their finance emissions they need to have a view of what the emissions linked to every asset are, and this requires a huge amount of data tracking.
• Another risk is choosing which technology they should invest in, this can vary from country to country and certain technologies are more advanced in certain markets. 

[15:34]  Daniel: What strategies are clients going for when trying to balance rising energy prices, maintaining a profit and pushing forward to net-zero?

• There are firms across industries who haven't made sustainability commitments yet as they are waiting for regulatory landscapes to be more clear. 
• Some may seem to not be doing much on the surface but they’re collecting all the data, identifying opportunities and becoming much smarter behind the scenes.

[17:27] Daniel: What are the major trends and changes you’ve seen within ESG and real estate since working at McKinsey?

• The shift in the quality of data is a big trend that is happening.
• Another inflection point is that increasingly investors are looking to understand ESG more and in particular what part of ESG may have a financial impact on the business.
• We have been in an era that has been about the construction of new green buildings, we are now shifting to a phase where we’re dealing with much harder topics such as in aviation and transforming current real estate stock to make it more efficient.

[20:03] Farzana: What trends have you seen in ESG and the finance and insurance sectors?

• I see the leaders as those who can convene partnership across the entire value chain of these technologies.
• You see a number of these partnerships emerging and they will be able to meet targets in sustainability much quicker than smaller set-ups.  

[24:35] Daniel: What are the key questions that clients in real estate should be asking?

• It is very early days, there is certainly a theme around energy efficiency and in some markets that’s going to be about regulations and others it's going to be because it improves the value of a property. 
• The most interesting thing happening is the blocking and tackling in the engine room, a lot of firms don’t have the data to understand their portfolio in detail. 

[27:33] Daniel: Do you think there is a skill gap at the moment that needs to change?

• The landscape is moving so fast and that's not something we’re used to in the real estate industry.
• A different skill set is required to understand the technical solutions and how they can monetise. 

[29:21] Farzana: What are the two most important questions you can ask as a business owner when trying to make your business more sustainable?

• Number one is “What do I focus on?” There is so much out there in terms of climate solutions that you could tackle, and businesses need to make a decision on the breadth and the depth of these solutions to inform the capabilities and the resources they need to build up.
• Number two is “How do I get the skills in?” Hiring new talent is really important but I also believe that everyone is going to need some level of proficiency in climate.

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Summary: In the ninth episode of Season 10 of the Propcast, host Louisa Dickins is joined by Eric Duchon, Global Head of ESG for Blackstone Real Estate and John Fitzpatrick, Chief Technology Officer of Alternative Asset Management Technology at Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager. John featured previously in Season 2 of The Propcast.

Eric and John share where Blackstone is on ESG and why they are seen as one of the leaders in this space. They talk about what Blackstone is focusing on as a business when it comes down to strategy, investment and innovation across their diverse and global portfolio.

In this episode you will hear how Blackstone ensures attractive returns for their investors whilst making a positive impact on the communities in which they invest.

Resources:

• LMRE Global Recruitment and Search Consultancy
• LMRE YouTube Interviews

Companies Mentioned:

• Sphera
• Schneider Electric
• EQ Office
• Willis Tower

Shout Outs:

• Don Anderson
• StuyTown
• Kenneth Caplan
• Kathleen McCarthy Baldwin 
• Jonathan Gray 

Key Insights From This Episode:  

• We believe that ESG is a real source of value and a way to mitigate risk in our portfolio - Eric

• What drove me into this space is the use of passion to drive change, whilst driving value - Eric
• We do need the technologies that help us automate and optimise our buildings but this also requires the people that know what they’re doing - Eric
• Technology is important, but having a clear strategy is the starting place that people should have if they want to achieve their ESG targets - John

About Our Guests:

Eric Duchon:

Eric Duchon is Global Head of ESG for Blackstone Real Estate. As part of the Real Estate Asset Management team, he partners with the firm’s central ESG team and Portfolio Operations to initiate, manage, implement and report ESG initiatives across the global Real Estate portfolio.

Prior to joining Blackstone in November 2020, Mr. Duchon was at LaSalle Investment Management where he was a Managing Director and Global Head of Sustainability. Prior to LaSalle, Mr. Duchon spent over 9 years at Cushman & Wakefield as the Director of Sustainability Strategies.

Mr. Duchon received a BBA from Emory University – Goizueta Business School and a Masters in Real Estate Development Degree from New York University Schack Institute of Real Estate.

John Fitzpatrick:

John Fitzpatrick is Chief Technology Officer of Alternative Asset Management Technology at Blackstone. He handles all aspects of technology across Blackstone’s Real Estate and Private Equity businesses and assists our portfolio companies with managing their technology programs and strategy. He is also involved in the firm’s balance sheet investments in targeted, early stage, technology-related opportunities.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Fitzpatrick oversaw various initiatives across the entire Technology and Innovations group. Before joining Blackstone in 2011, Mr. Fitzpatrick worked at Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor’s, for seven years where he was most recently the Head of Product.

He received a BS in Finance from St. John’s University and currently serves on the Blackstone Charitable Foundation’s Leadership Council.

About Blackstone:

Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. We seek to create positive economic impact and long-term value for our investors, the companies we invest in, and the communities in which we work. We do this by using extraordinary people and flexible capital to help companies solve problems. Our $941 billion in assets under management include investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, opportunistic, non-investment grade credit, real assets and secondary funds, all on a global basis. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Timestamps:

[2:06] Eric: What is your role at Blackstone?

• I lead ESG for Blackstone Real Estate globally, this means myself and my team work with all the departments at Blackstone to ensure we are implementing our ESG priorities as they are aligned with our fiduciary duty to add value to our portfolio and deliver great returns to our investors.
• We are finding ways to continue delivering value and ensuring that we are improving the environmental, social and governance performance of our companies and our assets.

[4:44] John: What are your responsibilities in your role at Blackstone and how have they changed?

• My responsibility is alternative asset management technology, this involves everything under our private equity and real estate umbrellas, it’s more than half of the AUM at Blackstone and really fits within ESG.

[5:35] Eric: What does ESG mean to Blackstone and how has it changed since you joined in 2020?

• There were great initiatives happening across Blackstone when I joined with regards to ESG however, the firm needed a more programmatic approach which is what we have done over the last 2 years.
• We’re focused on 3 main areas; diversity, decarbonisation and good governance. This guides everything that our ESG teams do and how we continue to integrate this more programmatic approach into our portfolio.

[7:40] John: How does your team assist with the ESG part of Blackstone?

• If you want to hit targets and goals then you need to be able to get the data and track it to see your progress over an extended period of time. 
• It's our job to collect that data in the most streamlined fashion so we can process that content in real time to ensure we are driving towards those targets

[9:05] John: Are there any more climate focused ESG investments across your portfolio that you could share with us?

• The data and insights that we have got from Sphera have helped us improve and learn in this space and helped our ESG technical ecosystem.

[9:42] Eric: How do these investments assist with your portfolios?

• We worked to develop a framework which sets out Blackstone Real Estates ESG priorities across 6 pillars, these set the tone for how we engage with the portfolio companies in order for them to develop their 3 year strategic ESG roadmaps.

[13:31] John: How do you tackle the technology gaps in businesses across your portfolio?

• We use our data initiatives to help them implore technology and try to make the transition as seamless as possible. We can then analyse and track their data and help them achieve their targets.
• We tend to make investments in solutions that have a competitive advantage or a unique data set like Sphera. 

[17:11]  Eric: What are the main barriers when it comes down to reducing carbon across your portfolios?

• A couple of years ago the social aspect of ESG was focused around  health, wellness and community engagement. Today, it is more focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.
• When we look at PropTech solutions for ESG one of the main barriers is being able to identify what the strengths and weaknesses are. There are some really good processes in place but humans are still necessary to ensure the quality data flows through.
• We need to ensure that we have the right people that understand the technologies and can drive action from it.

[20:45] John: Is there anything you would like to mention that you have seen in terms of barriers?

• Technology is important but having a clear strategy is the starting place that people should have if they want to achieve their ESG targets.

[23:00] Eric: What is the balance between automation and optimisation, and reducing carbon footprint? 

• We need the technologies that help us automate and optimise our buildings but this also requires the people that know what they’re doing.

L – Touch on the main lessons you have learnt throughout your career within this space?

Eric: You need to stay nimble in everything that you do, different things come at you everyday and you need to be able to take them in your stride.

M - Please give a mention to anyone / product / service.

John: Jonathan Gray, President at Blackstone, he is committed to ESG and doing it the right way. 

R – What has been the most  rewarding  aspect of working in ESG?

Eric: Whether you're reducing carbon emissions, whether you're ensuring that folks from under-resourced communities are getting better opportunities working with our portfolio companies. That to me is what drove me into the space connecting the passion to drive change.

E - What are you excited about in the future of the ESG space?

John: The innovation that is coming down the pipe, some of the best and brightest minds are in this space that are really passionate about this topic so the landscape in a few years time is going to look vastly different.

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Details And Data From Workthere, Powered By Savills

Quote from Guest: “There isn't a formula for flex spaces, it's about having the versatility and agility to meet the changing criteria of different occupiers and having the diverse levels of offerings across the flex market” - Jack

Summary:  Join us in episode 3 of season 8 of the #WorkBold podcast to hear Bold founder Caleb Parker interview Cal Lee, Founder and Global Head of Workthere, and his tag team partner, Jack Williamson, UK Head of the flex advisory platform powered by Savills to discuss the increasing demand for flex and how they advise landlords on launching successful coworking spaces. 

In this episode the three drill down into the details of why, what and how landlords should be thinking about Space-as-a-Service.

They dive into details, including footprint size, spatial allocations, the key points of accommodating a flex business plan, when landlords should partner or DIY,  how to address building valuation and of various brand considerations.

Workthere just released their Flexmark 3.0 and you’ll hear some of the key findings from their data backed research, such as The top 5 requested features of a flex space.

Connect with Cal on LinkedIn

Connect with Jack on LinkedIn

Connect with Caleb on LinkedIn 

If you have any questions or feedback on this episode, email podcast@workbold.co

Value Bombs:

The flex market is so diverse in that it appeals to a number of different kinds of occupiers - Jack

What we're finding now is that a lot of decisions business wise with regards to working locations and practices are rather than historically, being employer led, are now employee led - Jack

The power that employees have is making it more and more difficult to make decisions longer term and that therefore lends itself fundamentally to flex - Cal

Landlords are happy to make mistakes, they're happy to go on that learning journey, because they recognize that this could be 20% or 30% of their portfolio long term - Cal

Creating a trusted brand is absolutely key for any landlord that is going into creating their own space - Cal

Sticking with core values will inherently provide a better brand and a better experience for occupiers - Jack

The inherent definition of flex is to be able to have different choices - Caleb

The fact is that there are certain comforts of working from home and so we wanted to bring some of those into a setting so people are able to move around, I think it's important that you have that diversity and flexibility within the space - Caleb

Timestamps: 

[6:37] The diversity of the flex market.

[8:17] The increasing demand for flex.

[10:33] The spatial allocation of a flex product.

[14:33] Should every landlord be adding flex as a leasing strategy to their portfolio?

[17:51] Advice for landlords creating their own flex space.

[19:11] The footprint template for coworking spaces.

[21:27] In terms of valuation, flex spaces aren’t looked on kindly, how are you dealing with that with your clients?

[23:39] Guiding clients down the right path.

[26:05] The key points of accommodating a flex business plan.

[27:58] The level of commitment from landlords.

[29:41] Is brand driving customer behaviour?

[32:05] How is the customer profile changing in the flex market?

[33:40] The top 5 requested features of a flex space.

[35:11] The future of flex.

Resources:

• Workthere Flex Mark Report, 2022
• Savills Landlord Flex Survey, 2022

Shoutouts: 

• The Exchange, 22 Bishopsgate
• Antony Slumbers

About Cal Lee:

Cal founded Workthere in 2016, a business by Savills that helps any business, big or small, find flexible office space to suit their work, their needs and their budget. Cal came up with the idea whilst working in the Commercial Development team at Savills. Cal joined Savills as a graduate in 2011 from the University of Reading where he studied Real Estate.

About Jack Williamson:

Jack joined as Head of Workthere UK in March 2021. Jack is responsible for overseeing the UK team and building relationships with both occupiers and landlords to ensure that their Real Estate needs are satisfied and to help them navigate the ever changing flexible office market. Jack was previously a partner in the Leasing & Development team at Farebrother and Partner at Flexible Office Space. He qualified as a chartered surveyor in 2015.

Sponsors:

Headline Sponsor: TSK

TSK creates inspiring workplaces for some of the world’s biggest brands across the UK and Ireland. They've been working for 25 years to deliver the best employee experiences and the vision of their clients. Not only do they create great places to work, TSK share workplace content every week from the latest data to inspiring spaces they’ve designed and built. You can read their latest insights at www.tskgroup.co.uk or check out their LinkedIn and Instagram pages to become a follower, fan and friend.

TSK publish weekly thought leadership, research and content featuring their team, clients and partners about workplace, commercial interiors, hybrid working and how others have prospered from investing in workplace. You can check their latest publications and video content in the show notes by signing up to their weekly ‘work made better’ newsletter or visit tskgroup.co.uk.

Fortune Favours the Bold

Bold merges property management & Space-as-a-Service to help office customers grow faster and drive asset value. Bold is a real estate brand owned and operated by NewFlex (www.workbold.co) 

Future Proof Your Portfolio with NewFlex

NewFlex delivers and manages a range of branded solutions for every type of building, in every type of location, for every type of occupier. Including the flexibility to develop your own brand. All enabled by flexible management contracts where we are invested in making money for you. (www.newflex.com)

Launch Your Own Podcast

A Podcast Company is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with the right strategy, equipment, training, guidance and content to ensure you sound amazing while speaking to your niche audience and networking with your perfect clients. Get in touch hello@apodcastcompany.com 

Featuring Celebrity Guest Host Louisa Dickins, Host Of The Propcast

Quote from Guest: “By the time we define the future workplace it will probably be the past” - James

Summary: Louisa Dickins, The Propcast podcast host and Co-Founder of LMRE joins the #WorkBold Podcast as celebrity guest host. She interviews Bold founder, Caleb Parker and James Goldsmith, Head of Leasing at AXA IM - Real Assets to find out what’s happened since their pre-pandemic episode together in Season 1 at London’s new prestigious office building, 22 Bishopsgate.

In this episode James shares the vision behind 22 Bishopsgate. We hear about the importance of community, positive company cultures and amenitizing the workplace experience. The three go on to discuss partnerships, management agreements and the growth in demand for flex.

Connect with James on LinkedIn

Connect with Louisa on LinkedIn

Connect with Caleb on LinkedIn 

If you have any questions or feedback on this episode, email podcast@workbold.co

Value Bombs:

Level Seven has given us the opportunity to create a community for thinkers, for people who are challenging the status quo, people who are bold, that are creating amazing ideas and putting them into the world to make it a better place - Caleb

Innovation happens when you share ideas and you bring different people together - James

I'm a fan of remote work, but I'm a bigger fan of choice - Caleb

People aren't just looking for higher salaries and office culture, they're looking for a healthy building and a space where they can go make friends - Louisa

The challenge is, how can we create dynamic places that great cultures can thrive in? - Caleb

The office needs to be more like a university, that's where you've made your long-term social networks, you're encouraged to innovate, you can experiment and where you can manage your own time - James

The best offices are going to be those that are always able to adapt and morph into different types of workplaces - James

Resources:

The Propcast

Shoutouts: 

Jason Allan Scott

22 Bishopsgate 

Antony Slumbers

The Exchange, 22 Bishopsgate

Harry Badham

Sarah Fellingham-Adkin

Convene, 22 Bishopsgate

Ryan Simonetti

JLL

BXR Gym, 22 Bishopsgate

Rhubarb Hospitality, 22 Bishopsgate

About James Goldsmith:

James Goldsmith is Head of Leasing at AXA IM - Real Assets. He has worked on some of London's most progressive projects during his 25-year career in London. James has executed many high-profile and award-winning transactions as both an adviser and a principal; operating within the leasing, asset management and development markets.

Connect with James on Twitter

About Louisa Dickins:

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across the world. 

Louisa mentors for REACH, which is a global scale up program created by Second Century Ventures, an early-stage technology fund. She also mentors for BRICKS Innovation, the leading Israeli innovation hub focused on Real Estate technologies.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

Connect with Louisa on Twitter

Sponsors:

Headline Sponsor: TSK

TSK creates inspiring workplaces for some of the world’s biggest brands across the UK and Ireland. They've been working for 25 years to deliver the best employee experiences and the vision of their clients. Not only do they create great places to work, TSK share workplace content every week from the latest data to inspiring spaces they’ve designed and built. You can read their latest insights at www.tskgroup.co.uk or check out their LinkedIn and Instagram pages to become a follower, fan and friend.

TSK publish weekly thought leadership, research and content featuring their team, clients and partners about workplace, commercial interiors, hybrid working and how others have prospered from investing in workplace. You can check their latest publications and video content in the show notes by signing up to their weekly ‘work made better’ newsletter or visit tskgroup.co.uk.

Fortune Favours the Bold

Bold merges property management & Space-as-a-Service to help office customers grow faster and drive asset value. Bold is a real estate brand owned and operated by NewFlex (www.workbold.co) 

Future Proof Your Portfolio with NewFlex

NewFlex delivers and manages a range of branded solutions for every type of building, in every type of location, for every type of occupier. Including the flexibility to develop your own brand. All enabled by flexible management contracts where we are invested in making money for you. (www.newflex.com)

Launch Your Own Podcast

A Podcast Company is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with the right strategy, equipment, training, guidance and content to ensure you sound amazing while speaking to your niche audience and networking with your perfect clients. Get in touch hello@apodcastcompany.com 

• Deas Group
• Deepki
• Plentific
• Cobblestone
• Home.Earth
• Stronghold Invest
• Newsec
• Wework
• LMRE
• PropTech Denmark
• Axeleo Capital
• Regus
• Amazon

Summary: Louisa is joined by Jeff Allen, President of CubiCasa and Nikki Rinkus, Field Staff Appraiser at Clario Appraisal Network for the 6th episode of season 9 of The Propcast. The discussion kicks off with a description of CubiCasa’s product, what it provides, and how it speeds up floorplan and appraisal processes. Louisa, Jeff, and Nikki chat about the trend of tech adoption and digitization in the industry and how CubiCasa has a strong foothold in 142 different countries. Jeff explains how their company differentiates itself from competitors and describes the PropTech scene in Finland. One of the main takeaways in this episode is that technology isn't eliminating any jobs, it's creating more efficiencies. 

Resources:

• LMRE Global Recruitment and Search Consultancy
• LMRE YouTube Interviews

Companies Mentioned:

• JRL Property Group
• CBRE 
• Apprao
• bowery

Shout Outs:

• Jarmo Lumpus, Director Global Business Development at CubiCasa

Key Insights From This Episode: 

• You can go completely digital, I walk into an appraisal inspection with just my phone, no pad of paper, just the phone and it does everything. - Nikki
• Technology isn't eliminating any jobs, it's creating more efficiencies. - Jeff
• Appraisers are naturally a sceptical bunch, we want to check and double-check everything so we are slow to adopt new technology. - Nikki
• PropTech touches something universal and is important to everybody in the world. - Jeff

About Our Guests:

Jeff Allen, President of CubiCasa

Jeff Allen serves as President of CubiCasa where he leads the company’s overall strategy to digitize property data collection and unlock actionable data insights for homeowners and mortgage professionals alike. In addition, Jeff serves as Executive Vice President, Innovation Labs for Clear Capital, the real estate valuation technology company that acquired CubiCasa in 2021. In this capacity, Jeff spearheads Clear Capital’s in-house innovation hub, which focuses on the research, testing, and development of new products and solutions. Jeff has held a wide range of leadership roles throughout his career, including Vice President of Operations at CoreLogic, Chief Operating Officer at Rels, Director of Research Services at 10k Researching and Marketing, as well as Research Manager at Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS®. 

About CubiCasa

CubiCasa is a PropTech company focused on providing value for real estate professionals through the digitization of properties. Headquartered in Oulu, Finland, CubiCasa is the global market leader in mobile indoor scanning and is known for its fast and easy-to-use floor plan app on the App Store and Google Play Store. CubiCasa's technology is used in 144 different countries and has helped create over 1 million floor plans to date. CubiCasa provides technology for the real estate, appraisal, and mortgage industries and is on a mission to digitise real estate.

Nikki Rinkus:

Nikki Rinkus has been appraising real estate in the Chicagoland market for 30 years and also holds her sales broker license. Over those 30 years, she has experienced unprecedented technological shifts in both arenas and has always been an early adapter. Some of her most interesting side jobs over the years include international courier and DJ. 

About Clario Appraisal Network

Clario Appraisal Network is a full-service residential real estate appraisal firm. Composed of highly-experienced appraisers, we provide the highest quality services across the nation. We specialise in real estate valuations for the mortgage lending and financial services industries.

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Timestamps:

[03:20] Jeff: Can you talk us through your journey to the PropTech space in CubiCasa? 

• I've been involved in either real estate or mortgage appraisal, for my entire career. 
• Before I came to CubiCasa, I was running the R&D Innovation Lab at Clear Capital.
• We were trying to find something that would enable anyone to collect accurate property data and floor plan measurements without any training and we found CubiCasa and made the acquisition. 
• It's something that enables anybody with a smartphone to do a five-minute walk-through scan of a property, and then receive back accurate and detailed floor plans. 

[05:25] Nikki: How did you meet Jeff? 

• I had a long road to Clario, but about six years ago, I started working there and they are a subsidiary of Clear Capital and Jeff recruited me for one of his pilot programs. 
• Before CubiCasa we had an app that allowed us to walk through a property to get data points and someone at Clear Capital sent back information. 
• CubiCasa saves a lot of time for the appraiser so we could focus more on the valuation part and less on the data entry part. 

[06:45] Jeff: Can you go into a bit more detail about CubiCasa's product?

• The product works on a smartphone, a user can download the app and use it without training. 
• You just walk through the property room by room, pointing your smartphone down, where the walls meet the floor then the data that's collected and captured is processed through our computer vision and proprietary.
• Ultimately then it is reviewed by a human to make sure that we produce an accurate end floorplan result and then delivered back to the user. 
• Floor plan in a lot of different versions and property data as well, bed and bath counts and square footage. 

[08:40] Nikki: How long would it usually take to do something like that without CubiCasa?

• It varies between ranch style or cottage style houses at one level, rectangular properties, complex properties and multi-story properties. 
• Overall it can cut it by ¾ of the time and accuracy is much better.  

[11:15] Jeff: CubiCasa is in over 142 countries, what trends have you seen in terms of tech adoption and are there any countries you are looking to launch in?

• What's cool about CubiCasa is that the technology scales to different use cases and many different geographies.
• It's really a general-purpose technology that fits a lot of different use cases so it has organically grown.

[14:00] Jeff: The debate that is going on is that tech is taking away people’s jobs but CubiCasa helps people do their job as well as create new ones, would you say so?

•  Technology isn't eliminating any jobs, it's creating more efficiencies. 
•  A lot of people spend a lot of time drawing floor plans and it is easy to get it wrong when doing it by hand.

 [15:00] Nikki: What are you seeing in terms of people being hesitant to adopt new methods? 

• With a lot of appraisers, there's a level of trust involved and appraisers are slow to come to it.
• What I would say to appraisers is; “Do you want to go back to the cut and paste era of appraisals?”

[17:55] Jeff: How does CubiCasa differentiate itself from its competitors in an ever-growing market?

• The major things that set us apart are ease of capture, and getting the data and information. 
• The most common way to get floor plans for people is either to hand draw or a virtual tour and you're going to be scanning the house with special hardware, it's going to take you an hour and you're going to need specialised training. It's not scalable or democratising.
• With our product, all you need is a smartphone and you are doing a 5-minute scan with no training.

[21:15] Jeff: Could you tell the audience more about the Finland technology ecosystem? 

• Before finding CubiCasa, I didn’t know there was a PropTech scene in Finland. 
• There is a huge pipeline of talent and great technical talent coming out of the universities. 
• The Finnish PropTech scene is growing pretty significantly.

[22:40] The ‘LMRE’ part, Louisa asks the guests to talk about; 

L – Touch on the main lessons you have learnt throughout your career.

Nikki: Just be adaptable.

Jeff: Be nice to people and good things will happen,

M - Please give a mention to anyone / product / service.

Nikki: CubiCasa

Jeff: Nikki for testing out crazy stuff for us.

R – What has been the most rewarding aspect of working in PropTech?

Nikki: Just being able to use the technology in the appraisal space and see how it's made the process more reliable and streamlined.

Jeff:  PropTech touches something universal and important to everybody in the world.  

E - What are you excited about in the future of PropTech?

Nikki: To see the appraisal forms go from the static format that we've had for the last 19 years to a more logic-based cloud environment.

Jeff: AI and computer vision are already making an impact, but it's just getting started. 

Sponsors

Launch Your Own Podcast

Kopus.com is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with the right strategy, equipment, training, and guidance and content to ensure you sound amazing while speaking to your niche audience and networking with your perfect clients. Get in touch jason@kopus.com

Summary: On this episode of Propcast, Louisa speaks with Jeanne Casey and Jacinda Lofland from Nuveen Real Estate. They talk about what led them to the innovation, sustainability and technology space at one of the largest real estate investment managers globally. Jeanne and Jacinda explain what works in creating a diverse and inclusive powerful team, and how to avoid the issue of tokenism. They elaborate on needing strategy and investment decisions and how ESG, technology and community play a part in all of it. Lastly, they'll give us some home truths about what they think needs to change in terms of adoption and integration. The key takeaway from this episode is that the crux of the diversity issue is around retaining, promoting and genuinely empowering diverse talent that's already within the organisation.

Resources:

• LMRE Global Recruitment and Search Consultancy
• LMRE YouTube Interviews

Companies Mentioned:

• Nuveen
• Morgan Stanley
• Cisco
• Remote Year 
• PwC
• Selina
• Fitwell 
• Cushman & Wakefield
• Industrious Office

Shout Outs:

• Zander Geronimos, Head Of Strategic Partnerships and Business Development at MetaProp.vc
• Abigail Dean, Head of Strategic Insights Nuveen Real Estate

Key Insights From This Episode: 

• In 2021 we saw a 30% increase in ESG consultants and a 26% increase in ESG analysts. We also saw a 20% increase in innovation. - Louisa

• The crux of the diversity issue is around retaining, promoting and genuinely empowering diverse talent that's already within the organisation. - Jeanne
• It's so important that sustainability is not a side job.  - Jacinda
• There's wide recognition that technology is going to play an outsized role in achieving fairly ambitious net-zero carbon and other sustainability goals. - Jeanne
  
  

About Our Guests:

Jeanne Casey is the Global Head of PropTech and Innovation at Nuveen, and leads investments and insights in PropTech for the firm. Previously, Jeanne was a Principal at MetaProp, a leading PropTech venture capital firm based in New York. Prior to joining MetaProp, Jeanne was a founding team member and Vice President at Digital Alpha where she worked on the launch, fundraising, and deployment of a $300 million growth equity fund focused on digital infrastructure. She has previous experience with Cisco and Morgan Stanley, and holds a MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA with honours from Johns Hopkins University.

As Director of Customers & Community, Jacinda Lofland works with Nuveen Real Estate’s operating partners to improve customer experience and productivity, engage with customers around ESG initiatives, promote and collaborate with community organisations and local businesses, and to measure, analyse, and act on customer feedback. Jacinda helped develop and roll out Nuveen Real Estate’s smart, sustainable building blueprint for various sectors. Prior to Nuveen Real Estate, Jacinda was a Director on the Real Estate team at Selina and prior to that, she led the Finance team at Remote Year. Jacinda has previous experience in real estate equity and debt investments with TIAA, auditing with PwC, and she holds a B.A. in Business Economics from UCLA. 

Nuveen Real Estate is one of the largest real estate investment managers in the world with $142 billion of assets under management. Managing a suite of real estate funds and mandates, across both public and private investments, and spanning both debt and equity across diverse geographies and investment styles, we provide access to every aspect of real estate investing. With over 85 years of real estate investing experience and more than 600+ employees located across over 30 cities throughout the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific, the platform offers unparalleled geographic reach, which is married with deep sector expertise. 

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-dickins-ab065392/

Louisa started her career in property working at a well-known estate agency in London. Realising her people skills, she moved over to Lloyd May to pursue a career in recruitment. She now is a Director at LMRE, who are a specialist recruitment firm driven by PropTech and recruitment professionals, and Louisa oversees their 5 core areas. Louisa co-founded LMRE and provides a constructive recruitment platform to the new disruptors in real estate. Louisa is also on the board of Directors at UK PropTech Association (UKPA).

About LMRE

www.lmre.tech

LMRE believe there is a better way to recruit. LMRE focus on a more comprehensive, client led focus delivering exceptional talent to the place at the time. They are passionate about the industry and passionate about people's careers. LMRE spend time with each client to become and an extension of the business, and their transparency and core values help them grow with the sector. LMRE simplify recruitment and innovate with our clients and evolve the people driven, PropTech community.

Timestamps:

[01:45] Jeanne, how did you get started in this space and your role? 

• I have been in venture capital for over 10 years. Half of that time I have focussed on PropTech and most recently at MetaProp. 
• I started my investing career in FinTech at Morgan Stanley in the early 2010s and then I worked at a fund that spun out of Cisco. We were investing in digital infrastructure, including smart cities and IOT and that's what led me to PropTech.

[02:55] Jacinda, can you tell us about your journey? 

• I started out at PwC and I worked mostly on commercial real estate clients. 
• My first time with Tiaa was back in 2013 and I did commercial mortgage originations as well as equity investments on the West Coast.
• I moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina and was the first finance hire for Remote Year. I worked for Selina for about 10 months after that.
• After that, I came back to Nuveen where my focus is customers, community and the experience of our end users as well as engaging around ESG. 

[06:30] Jeanne, what do you think can be done to attract more diversity to this space?

• The crux of the issue is around retaining, promoting and genuinely empowering diverse talent that's already within the organisation.

[07:20] What is Nuveen doing in terms of their hiring? 

•  Jeanne and I sit on the Insights Team which is led by Abigail Dean and that team includes our research team, sustainability, PropTech, Customers & Communication and Innovation. 

[09:40] There is a lot of women leadership at Nuveen, what do you think can be done to increase this?

• I think it's beyond just attracting and recruiting diverse talent. It is about retaining, promoting and empowering the talent that already sits within an organisation. 
• Our DEI initiatives are more genuine and actually reflect what our teams look like.

[11:45] Jacinda, you are from more of a real estate side, what have you seen in terms of diversity and inclusion? 

• We're making meaningful progress. 
• There have been a lot of reports around the benefits of diversity.
• Implicit bias training has been a really important step for us.
• It's important to hire outside of the same sets of colleges that might have strong, finance or real estate programs.

[19:50] Is there anything more you want to delve into about what you've seen in the more VC (corporate side), or within the startups? 

• I've seen a lot of genuine improvement over the decade.
• I've always been at the intersection of finance and technology and both of those are historically very male dominated, very white dominated and a little bit older. I think that's largely, or at least in the process of changing quite a bit.
• Boardrooms and investment teams look quite a bit different than when I started just 10 years ago.

[19:10] Talk us through the focus for 2022.

• Our tomorrow's world strategy, there are three key things that we focus on; sustainability, technology and demographics.  
• We have what we call a smart, sustainable building blueprint (SSBB) and there are a number of categories that we think really tied to those three overarching themes; energy, water, waste, resilience, health, and wealth, tenants & community, leasing and data & digitalisation.
• We want to build on our partnership with Fitwell.
• We'll be launching a VC strategy in the coming months.
• The two, overarching themes are; 
• • a data strategy and tools and new technologies that help unlock our own proprietary data across our massive portfolio. 
  • the intersection of sustainability and ESG with PropTech 

[27:40] What do you think the industry could do better as a whole to move things forward in terms of adoption/integration?

• Incentives alignment is an area that is still fairly nebulous.
• Cascading goals around our own compensation targets that are specifically tied to sustainability and innovation goals. 
• Rethinking how our buildings work, but also rethinking how we work.

 [31:40] The ‘LMRE’ part, Louisa asks the guests to talk about:

• Lessons learned in your career

• Mention a person, product or service

• Rewarding parts of working in the space: 

• What are you most Excited about for the future of the space?:  

Sponsors

Launch Your Own Podcast

Kopus.com is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with the right strategy, equipment, training, and guidance and content to ensure you sound amazing while speaking to your niche audience and networking with your perfect clients. Get in touch jason@kopus.com

Summary: In episode 5 of this season of the Propcast, Louisa is joined by Tarush Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of 5x. He is one of the leading experts in leveraging data for exponential growth and has over 10 years of experience in the field. In this episode Louisa and Tarush talk about his journey through data and his involvement in WeWork that allowed the business to grow 10x in 3 years. 

Tarush shares how to convert data into dollars, and how his business does exactly that. They discussed the data trends that he has seen over the years and Tarush gives some tips on how to get into the data space and make it a serious career path. 

Companies Mentioned:

• 5x
• Salesforce
• WeWork 

Shout Outs:

• Nelson Lau, CEO at PropertyQuants

• Adam Neumann, Co-Founder of WeWork 

Key Insights From This Episode: 

• What is super interesting about the data revolution is that we are still living through it. - Tarush
• Growth is something that takes time. You can grow really quickly, but at some point, it becomes unsustainable. - Tarush
• If you are serious about adding business value by being data-driven, you have to develop a data stack, and you are going to have to store it, structure it and clean it. - Tarush
• We saw a 46% increase in people being hired in data roles... I think this year it is going to increase even more.  - Louisa
• In today's age data is no longer a nice to have, it's an essential part of any company's business proposition. - Tarush
• It is easy to have poor company values. - Tarush
• It's important to have values and write them down, but what are you doing to action them? - Tarush
• I think sequel is probably the most important skill in any of the data professions - Tarush

About Our Guests:

Tarush Aggarwal 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarushaggarwal/ 

Tarush is one of the leading experts in leveraging data for exponential growth, with
over ten years of experience in the field.  After graduating with a degree in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 2011, he became the first data engineer on the analytics team at Salesforce.com. Data was in its infancy, and the log metric framework which Tarush built was critical in allowing Salesforce to analyse data across customers and provide benchmarks across different industries and verticals. Most recently Tarush led Data for WeWork, one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. WeWork leveraged data to be able to grow 10x in 3 years, supporting a  footprint of 800+ offices in 120+ cities in 23+ countries with over 12,000 employees. Tarush scaled the data org from 2 to 100+ and their unique approach allowed them to stay lean while supporting every functional area of the business. In 2019 he moved to China to help establish WeWork’s Asia operations and focus on the hyper-growing Chinese market.

About 5x

https://5x.co/

The biggest challenge for most businesses is converting data into dollars. Businesses lack the expertise to build the data engine (infrastructure, data collection, self-service reporting) That's why we created 5x. To enable companies to answer business questions, without having to worry about building data infrastructure or bringing in the right team.  Because of our prefabricated data blocks & network of remote data engineers, we deliver data reporting faster, cheaper, and of higher quality, than anyone else in the industry. 

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-dickins-ab065392/

Louisa started her career in property working at a well-known estate agency in London. Realising her people skills, she moved over to Lloyd May to pursue a career in recruitment. She now is a Director at LMRE, who are a specialist recruitment firm driven by PropTech and recruitment professionals, and Louisa oversees their 5 core areas. Louisa co-founded LMRE and provides a constructive recruitment platform to the new disruptors in real estate. Louisa is also on the board of Directors at UK PropTech Association (UKPA).

About LMRE

www.lmre.tech

LMRE believe there is a better way to recruit. LMRE focus on a more comprehensive, client led focus delivering exceptional talent to the place at the time. They are passionate about the industry and passionate about people's careers. LMRE spend time with each client to become and an extension of the business, and their transparency and core values help them grow with the sector. LMRE simplify recruitment and innovate with our clients and evolve the people driven, PropTech community.

Timestamps

[2:35] Can you talk us through your career? You started off at Salesforce, then went on to be the Global Head of Data at WeWork, you have founded and grown your own business. How did you scale the data from two to a hundred plus at WeWork and how did you get Adam to prioritise this as a business need?

• We are still living through the data revolution. 10 years ago, at Salesforce, no one in the valley had a data team. 10 years later at WeWork, it was completely different, we had an established modern data stack.
• When I joined, WeWork had about 100 offices and a few years later we had close to a thousand. The business was growing so quickly and we had to scale the team as well. It was slightly unsustainable.

[6:10] What does your business do and how does it come together with the modern data stack? How does it drive more value for customers and can you give an example of who one of your customers might be. 

• Businesses find it difficult to extract value from data because startups today have 10-12 different sources of data. Hiring an ad hoc analyst who builds a few dashboards isn’t good enough anymore, it doesn’t lead to long-term business value. 
• If you are serious about adding business value by being data-driven, you have to develop a data stack and you are going to have to store it, structure it and clean it. 
• 5x stitches together the data stack with all the best-in-class vendors, across data collection and Deshon storage modelling and reporting. 
• We interview and hire engineers and we get to hire the top 1% of these engineers. We can pre-train these engineers on the platform. 
• 5x is faster, cheaper and higher quality.
• Our sweet spot is a company that has found some success and then they need to go scale the business and they need to go deploy an entire data comprehensive strategy and do so fairly quickly. 

[11:10] You are 8 months old and you’ve already raised, are about to raise again and you have over 50 employees. What's the secret to maintaining a good culture?

• A lot of it comes from the Founder.  
• It is easy to have poor company values. 
• It's important to have values and write them down, but what are you doing to action them?

[14:45] Are there any macro trends that you have seen in the 10 years that you have been working in data and what does it mean for companies? 

• 10 years ago, no one was doing digital marketing and no one had a website for their business and Google came along and said that if you don’t have an online presence, you are not going to exist. 
• In the next 10 years there will be the evolution of digital marketing and digital marketing will go more mainstream and that will evolve into data.
• In very early rounds, venture capitals are asking what's your data strategy. 

[17:50] You started off as data engineer, now you are a Founder and you have started a new profession. How can people learn more about it? 

• We are early in the space and when I started the playbook of data hadn't yet been written. 
• Ramping up in your tech skills, SQL is really important. Something like Python or any analysis language are skills that are extremely valuable.
• Understanding the best practises and being able to shadow a company. Doing it well and spending time to really understand the best practises and the trends.

[22:55] The ‘LMRE’ part, Louisa asks the guests to talk about:

• Lessons learned in your career

• When you look at what data it's adding visibility organisation that's kind of one side of the spectrum and on the other side is being in flow, extremely creative and intuitive. We tend to be either or. 

• Unless you actively try you're just going to move more and more on that spectrum. If you're a data-driven person then likely you're just going to make everything in your life even more data-driven.

• Moving more towards the middle is something that will serve everyone. 

• Mention a person, product or service

• My assistant, Tricia

• To-Do-List and Google Calendar save my life on a daily basis 

• Rewarding parts of working in the space: 

• Impact is a huge one. Being able to leverage data for growth is not something which is trivial. 

• What are you most Excited about for the future of the space?:  

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Summary: Welcome back to season 8 of the Propcast! In this first episode, Louisa speaks with Frank Furman, COO at PadSplit and Kevin Shtofman, COO of NavigatorCRE about what the real role of a COO involves. They discuss how the COO is the ‘CEO of Execution’ and how they support organisations to scale efficiently. Louisa shares some insights on recruiting for the COO role and how the role can look different in each organisation. You’ll learn more about how PadSplit and NavigatorCRE operate in this insightful episode. 

Companies Mentioned:

• PadSplit
• NavigatorCRE
• McKinsey
• Georgia Pacific
• Common
• WeWork
• OfficeApp
• Building Engines
• Yardi 
• MRI
• Dottid
• Jojo Learning

Shout Outs:

• Atticus LeBlanc, CEO PadSplit
• Matt Ellis from Measurabl

Resources:

• Listen to Brad Hargreaves from Common in this episode from Season 7 of The Propcast

Key Insights From This Episode: 

• Our view is that if you can make affordable housing higher return than market rate there is no affordable housing challenge because you're leveraging the capital and energy and intellect of the private investor, and they are motivated to solve that. - Frank
• The most consistent problem I got was we've got a bunch of information that we don't use to make decisions because it's spread out all over the place. It's almost like what Frank's company has done with space we are doing with information and data. - Kevin
• In the most general sense, to me, a COO role is an execution one. - Frank
• I really think at the end of the day, the job of the COO is to help a company scale efficiently. - Kevin
• What I found is the most important role of the COO is finding lieutenants. - Kevin
• The COO hat really is the CEO of execution. - Kevin
• I think a few trends that we saw in 2021 are absolutely going to continue in 22. You'll see continued consolidation among proptech firms. - Kevin
• Finding talent as you grow is still so hard. And that's what keeps me up at night. - Kevin

Keywords: Retail, Operations, Startups, Mergers And Acquisitions

About Our Guests:

Kevin Shtofman

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinshtofman/

Kevin has spent the last 17 years in the Commercial Real Estate industry, working with clients across four continents. His work at Morgan Stanley, EY, and Deloitte led him to join NavigatorCRE as their chief operating officer just over two years ago.  Kevin has presented on stages in 27 countries, discussing the future of real estate technology and covering topics around Blockchain, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Twins. He and his wife Katie live in Dallas with their two daughters, Avery and Lily. 

NavigatorCRE is a patented, cloud-based business intelligence platform that serves enterprise owners, operators, investors, and managers across all property types, stages, and geographies…and works on any device, without an app. Over 2 Billion square feet sit on the Navigator platform.

Frank Furman

https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-furman-4b70b353/ 

Frank is the Chief Operating Officer at PadSplit, a co-living startup that is dedicated to solving the affordable housing crisis. Prior to PadSplit, he worked as a Category Director at Georgia Pacific and as an Engagement Manager for McKinsey & Company in London and Atlanta. A former infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps, he commanded at the platoon and company levels and served two tours in Afghanistan. He has a B.S in Aeronautical Engineering from the United States Naval Academy and an M.S. in Applied Physics from Johns Hopkins University. He and his wife Caelyn live in Atlanta, and have two sons, Rudyard and Byron.

PadSplit is a privatized housing company focused on providing affordable houses. They have over 1,700 units (within just 3.5 years), including single and multi-family properties. PadSplit also increases yield by more than 100 percent for property owners by using existing housing stock as shared housing. PadSplit was founded in 2017 to leverage housing as a vehicle for financial independence for low-income workers that serve our communities.

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-dickins-ab065392/?originalSubdomain=uk

Louisa started her career in property working at a well-known estate agency in London. Realising her people skills, she moved over to Lloyd May to pursue a career in recruitment. She now is a Director at LMRE, who are a specialist recruitment firm driven by PropTech and recruitment professionals, and Louisa oversees their 5 core areas. Louisa co-founded LMRE and provides a constructive recruitment platform to the new disruptors in real estate. Louisa is also on the board of Directors at UK PropTech Association (UKPA).

About LMRE

www.lmre.tech

LMRE believe there is a better way to recruit. LMRE focus on a more comprehensive, client led focus delivering exceptional talent to the place at the time. They are passionate about the industry and passionate about people's careers. LMRE spend time with each client to become and an extension of the business, and their transparency and core values help them grow with the sector. LMRE simplify recruitment and innovate with our clients and evolve the people driven, PropTech community.

Welcome back to the Propcast for Season 8.

This is the show where host, Louisa Dickins interview PropTechs most compelling figures from around the world to discuss industry trends and challenges, career learnings and what the future holds for start ups, and the funds who are changing up the property landscape.

Our guests share not only professional but personal experiences and the valuable lessons they have learnt for our listeners to find out more about the evolution of the built environment.

In this week's episode of The Propcast, Louisa speaks with Scottie Lee, Vice President, Strategy & Research at Equity Residential in Chicago and Marco Biasiotto, Director of Retail and Digital Strategy at Primaris Management Inc. They talk about how PropTech startups can get the attention of funders and VC’s to partner and support their products go to market strategy or fund their scale up. Scottie and Marco share their best advice for any startups looking to secure funding, as well as their do’s and don’t’s of fundraising. 

Companies Mentioned:

REIM Tech https://www.linkedin.com/in/naqash/?originalSubdomain=uk 

PGIM site https://www.pgim.com/

La Salle https://www.lasalle.com/

Primarche https://primarche.ca/ 

Tableau https://www.tableau.com/ 

Shout Outs

Naqash Tahir - https://www.linkedin.com/in/naqash/?originalSubdomain=uk

Dropit - https://www.linkedin.com/company/dropit-shopping/ 

Key Insights From This Episode:

• Alot of it is about the team, and then the technology or whatever they're trying to sell you. Because oftentimes they're very early on. And wherever they're trying to sell you today, it's going to evolve in six months, and that evolution is really going to be dependent on the team. - Scottie

• Is the problem that you're really trying to solve for us all that meaningful and impactful? Or is it maybe a secondary problem and maybe you're better off as a bolt-on feature to something else. - Scottie

• In terms of big don'ts, the one thing I can't stand is the constant email blasting that we're getting from multiple people within an organisation. It's just, it puts a red flag up to say, I'm out. I don't want to hear any more from you. You're done. - Marco

• I think there's lot of work in trying to connect, I would say, legacy systems with more modern technologies, particularly around their data and analytics and so forth. - Scottie

• Uou need to try things. You can't just stay with the status quo. So you need to be able to be open-minded understand what technologies that you're going to look at to embrace and bring into the organisation. - Marco

• if we were going to engage and want to do something like a pilot, we need a little bit of suitability on partner side or on the vendor side. So those are some of the things that you try to pick at and try to get a good handle on before you really start to engage. - Scottie

Keywords: investment, proptech, retail, startups, institutions, failure, success

About Our Guests:

Scottie Lee

https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottie-lee-05a6313/ 

Scottie Lee is Vice President, Strategy & Research at Equity Residential in Chicago where he manages a team responsible for market research, sustainability, resilience, energy and environmental. Prior to Equity, Mr. Lee served as Vice President, Strategy & Analytics at Taubman where he oversaw corporate strategy, market research, financial planning & analysis, and financial & data analytics. 

Mr. Lee is a member of the Urban Land Institute. He previously was a member of ULI Michigan’s Technology Local Product Council and was a member of ULI Michigan’s Larson Center for Leadership’s inaugural class. He is an emeritus member of ICSC’s North America Research Group. He previously served on the Governing Board of Detroit Chief Data Officer. 

Mr. Lee received his MBA with High Distinction from the University of Michigan and his BS in Industrial Engineering and Economics from Northwestern University. 

Company description

Equity Residential is an S&P 500 company focused on the acquisition, development and management of rental apartment properties located in urban and high-density suburban markets where today’s renters want to live, work and play. Equity Residential owns or has investments in 307 properties consisting of 79,322 apartment units, primarily located in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, Southern California and Denver.

Marco Biasiotto 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marco-biasiotto-35383923/?originalSubdomain=ca 

Marco Biasiotto is the Director of Retail and Digital Strategy at Primaris Management Inc.  He oversees the evolving industry trends and provides strategic recommendations that drive success for our shopping centre business.  Marco is responsible for developing an insights platform at Primaris while also focused on embracing innovation through emerging technologies and partnerships.  

With a retail research and shopping centre career spanning over 25 years, Marco is a leading expert in retail real estate technology and business insights. He recently launched the first ever omni-channel multi-shopping centre marketplace linking real time inventory.  He is an active participant in ICSC’s North American Research Group and the Canadian Research Group.  Marco holds a master degree in Spatial Analysis from Ryerson University.

About Primaris

Primaris is a wholly owned subsidiary of H&R REIT.  Primaris owns and manages more than 7.5 million square feet of commercial space, including 17 enclosed shopping centres located across Canada. H&R REIT is one of Canada's largest real estate investment trusts with total assets of approximately $13.1 billion at June 30, 2021. H&R REIT has ownership interests in a North American portfolio ofhigh-quality office, retail, industrial and residential properties comprising over 40 million square feet.

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-dickins-ab065392/?originalSubdomain=uk

Louisa started her career in property working at a well-known estate agency in London. Realising her people skills, she moved over to Lloyd May to pursue a career in recruitment. She now is a Director at LMRE, who are a specialist recruitment firm driven by PropTech and recruitment professionals, and Louisa oversees their 5 core areas. Louisa co-founded LMRE and provides a constructive recruitment platform to the new disruptors in real estate. Louisa is also on the board of Directors at UK PropTech Association (UKPA).

About LMRE

www.lmre.tech

LMRE believe there is a better way to recruit. LMRE focus on a more comprehensive, client led focus delivering exceptional talent to the place at the time. They are passionate about the industry and passionate about people's careers. LMRE spend time with each client to become and an extension of the business, and their transparency and core values help them grow with the sector. LMRE simplify recruitment and innovate with our clients and evolve the people driven, PropTech community.

In this episode of The Propcast, Louisa speaks with Peter Gibbons, MD of Openn Negotiation and Jeffery Gray, Founder and CEO of PROPIC about what it takes to exit and IPO a real estate company. They discuss how to set your company up to be IPO ready, how exciting it is to be in the Proptech sector right now, and how to maintain resilience when working in a Proptech startup.

Companies Mentioned:

Openn Negotiation https://www.openn.com.au/ 

PROPIC https://www.propic.com.au/ 

REACH Australia https://nar-reach.com/ 

Domain Group https://www.domain.com.au/group/ 

Second Century Venues https://www.scv.vc/

National Association of Realtors https://www.nar.realtor/ 

MRI Group https://www.mrisoftware.com/

Fleet https://fleetspace.com/ 

Shout Outs

Ash from ActivePipe (Ashley Farrugia) https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-farrugia-99bb0616/?originalSubdomain=au 

MRI Group https://www.linkedin.com/company/mri-software-llc/ 

Key Insights From This Episode:

• Forbes has estimated by 2025, 95% of all consumer interactions are going to be supported by AI technology. Residential real estate is the largest asset class in the word. And you look at it as a vertical, it is well behind any other consumer facing vertical, arguably in the world. - Jeffery Gray

• VC’s and investors in America are...scouring the word, looking for technology companies that are investing in artificial intelligence. It is the next generation of technology and that's why they're reaching out. - Jeffery Gray

• There's positives and negatives to being listed. For us it was overwhelmingly a positive on balance, particularly around securing the funding so that we don't need to worry about funding now in terms of our runway, but more importantly, we've got a very clear roadmap that needed funding to execute it. - Peter Gibbons

• To me real estate is that last great bastion. It is a great industry to be in, but there's so many areas for improvement, and that improvement is all about customer journey. So the buyer and seller journey, how do we make their lives easier? And the key conduit to that is help out the agents. - Peter Gibbons

• COVID was a bit of a wakeup call to maybe there are other ways of doing things that aren’t the traditional way that we've undertaken it. So agents have really embraced it from that perspective because a) they either had time on their hands to learn about new things, and b) they had to come up with solutions that they probably haven't thought of before. - Peter Gibbons

Keywords: proptech, AI, IPO, listing, public, exit, property, real estate, funding, VC, investors

About Our Guests:

Peter Gibbons, Openn Negotiation

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-gibbons/?originalSubdomain=au 

Peter Gibbons has extensive experience in property investment banking, property development and financing and technology development. He has held senior roles in some of the world’s largest investment banks, including Macquarie Bank, Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank, as well as Board roles at Landcorp, the Western Australian Football Commission, Silver Chain, and Chairman of the Bethanie Group.

About Openn Negotiation

Openn Negotiation is an Australian property technology company offering a proprietary cloud-based software platform to support real estate agents in selling property online with greater transparency. The Openn platform facilitates a negotiation process, featuring streamlined digital contracting and automated communication tools, which enhances a property transaction. The solution provides buyers with real-time feedback through their device on how much competition exists and where their price stands in the negotiation, resulting in an optimal sales outcome.

Jeffery Gray, PROPIC

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffery-gray-8b3216a/?originalSubdomain=au 

Jeffery Gray the founder and CEO of Propic. He has extensive experience in property technology, data and AI. Jeffery was a former executive of Domain Group, Aristocrat, Lexis Nexis and numerous other data and technology companies. After a successful exit from a prior start up, he be came a Real Estate agent for a period, prior to joining Domain Group. As such has first hand
experience with the pain points, challenges and opportunities that the Real Estate vertical has.

About Propic

Propic is an Australian based data and AI company that delivers conversational AI and data solutions to residential real estate agents spanning, Sales, Property Management and Project Marketing, House and Land and Build to Rent Propic's conversational AI (Enliven AI) serves consumers 24/7 enabling its customers to scale with out people and in real time. ReVeal AI is a data platform that tracks every property and listing in australia, ingests customer data and its algorithms works out who has the highest propensity to transact in the future. The agent app tells and agent, who to call, when and most importantly why, all in natural language.

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-dickins-ab065392/?originalSubdomain=uk

Louisa started her career in property working at a well-known estate agency in London. Realising her people skills, she moved over to Lloyd May to pursue a career in recruitment. She now is a Director at LMRE, who are a specialist recruitment firm driven by PropTech and recruitment professionals, and Louisa oversees their 5 core areas. Louisa co-founded LMRE and provides a constructive recruitment platform to the new disruptors in real estate. Louisa is also on the board of Directors at UK PropTech Association (UKPA).

About LMRE

www.lmre.tech

LMRE believe there is a better way to recruit. LMRE focus on a more comprehensive, client led focus delivering exceptional talent to the place at the time. They are passionate about the industry and passionate about people's careers. LMRE spend time with each client to become and an extension of the business, and their transparency and core values help them grow with the sector. LMRE simplify recruitment and innovate with our clients and evolve the people driven, PropTech community.