If technology is crucial to driving the real estate sector forward, who needs to be on board? That was one of the topics tackled in EG’s proptech panel at MIPIM. Here is a snapshot of the conversation around talent – what skill sets the industry needs, how easy they are to find and how investors can support businesses on the journey.
ESG needs
Vincent Bryant, chief executive and co-founder, Deepki
“In terms of hard skills, we need people who are very good at selling, especially the American way of selling, but also good developers, ESG experts, consultants, project managers and all the skills you need for a company.
“Where we face some issues is finding people experienced enough in a topic which is very new, like the ESG side. We can take junior workers or people who want to switch their career and we train them. But it’s harder for our customers.
“An asset manager will have a head of ESG with very scarce resources that everybody would like to have access to. Five years ago, almost nobody had this position internally. But more important than skill sets is commitment – the willingness to work on a daily basis to fight climate change.”
Scary stats
Louisa Dickins, co-founder, LMRE
“It depends on what stage business you are. A lot of the skills that are required are digital – the data, the product, the engineering. There is a massive lack of communication between these teams. When you’re scaling a tech business, it is about making sure that all your teams are communicating together.
“This comes down to the value point as well – is everyone on the same mission? Does everyone have the same drive to achieve things? And there’s also a scary stat for everyone who might be hiring – we did a salary survey last year, and surveyed hundreds of people from the real estate world, the tech world, all within the built environment.
“It showed that everyone is looking [for a new role] unless you have a vested interest. The average stay in a business is 18 months. So, if you’re looking at innovation and adoption, those are things you need to work on because innovation can’t happen in 18 months.”
Show of support
Tzvete Doncheva, investor relations lead, PropTech1
“From a VC perspective, we have seen so many more funds with a focus on proptech being created over the past decade. This is an apprenticeship-style business, so you are able to gain skills and you are able to develop in a role. Frequently, people move fund to fund whenever they find a good opportunity.
“What we have done at PropTech1 is that all senior team members have a part of the carry, so that is back to the point of being able to incentivise people to stay for the long term.
“For any business it is useful if the people that you interact with are there for the long term – you don’t want any change. From our company standpoint, as we are an early-stage investor, we like to be active and be there when the founders need us. So whenever there are some team dynamics – whenever there are, for example, new executive hires needing to be made – we are there to support them.”
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