Knight Frank has refreshed its commercial board to coincide with Stephen Clifton taking the helm on 1 April.
Clifton is looking to bring more of a consultancy presence to the board to balance its agency and investment expertise.
Three of the eight board members are new – Tim Robinson, Julian Stocks and Richard Claxton – while four also have enhanced responsibilities in their main role, over and above Clifton taking over as the head of the commercial business from the retiring John Snow.
Alastair Graham-Campbell is taking on the role of head of UK cities and the heads of the firm’s regional offices will report into him. He will also keep his role heading up portfolio transactions.
Head of central London offices
William Beardmore-Gray has become head of central London offices, Clifton’s old role, while his former position as head of the City office is to be taken up by Angus Goswell.
Tim Robinson, as part of his new role as head of consultancy, will take charge of around half of the commercial business and will also lead the company’s drive into the tech market. He was previously head of property asset management.
“We are good on technology but we need to be outstanding on it,” says Clifton. “Tim’s an outstanding ‘get on with it’ person who has been responsible for bringing 50 people into the business from Deloitte and integrating them.”
The role of head of UK capital markets, which became vacant when Peter McColl retired, has been taken up by new board member Richard Claxton.
Julian Stocks joins the board for the first time and remains a partner at the firm. He is also the chief executive of the Pollen Estate. Stocks joined in 2016 when the asset and property management team he headed at Deloitte Real Estate moved over to Knight Frank.
Clifton says that his broad career experience will give the board members, many of whom have been with the company most of their working lives, a different perspective.
Challenging perspective
“What Julian offers our board is something quite different. Having been at JLL, he was also a client of ours at Tishman Speyer and then had the experience of a very different business at Deloitte before moving to us. He is a real client with Pollen, which uses our service lines, so he gives a genuine alternative and challenging perspective,” he says.
As well as Snow and McColl leaving the board, Rupert Johnson is also stepping down but remains in his main role as partner and global head of valuations.
One glaring observation of the eight members of the new board is that they are all white men. The lack of diversity at the company’s top level is something that Clifton says is top of his agenda to change and he is due to make further announcements on how he plans to address the issue shortly after taking on the role as head of the commercial business.
“If I go right back to basics, what we have at Knight Frank is a real opportunity for a refresh. I am going to be looking at what are we not doing as effectively as we could be doing and number one is engaging with our existing talent. I am going to be putting into place a new operational structure to do that,” he says.
He adds: “It is difficult suddenly to change diversity at the top but within a short time it will change as we are putting together an ambitious diversity plan to change our DNA that will define and differentiate us.”
The new Knight Frank commercial board
■ Alistair Elliott, senior partner and group chairman
■ Stephen Clifton, head of commercial (stepping up from head of central London offices)
■ William Beardmore-Gray, head of London offices (stepping up from head of City office)
■ John Diggins, group finance director
■ Alastair Graham-Campbell, head of UK cities, (also remains head of portfolio investment)
■ Tim Robinson, head of consultancy, (new board member, steps up from head of property asset management)
■ Julian Stocks, partner (new board member)
■ Richard Claxton, head of UK capital markets (new board member, steps up from head of office and industrial capital markets)
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