Stephen Clifton is head of commercial at Knight Frank. He shares a day in October at the Baker Street headquarters, dipping into data centres and a renewed ESG agenda, and reflecting on a pickup in London deals.
Whilst leading the UK commercial operation of a global agency has been challenging with more than a couple of sleepless nights, I have learned so much about myself and about Knight Frank. For a time, the economy ground to a halt and things we took for granted, time with friends, an evening out or a normal day in the office evaporated.
We’ve learned how to keep in touch and build morale, we have adapted well to the lockdown through regular and personal communication and updates to clients and colleagues, often written at the weekend with my family. My wife is a bereavement councillor, my sister a nurse and I have three little girls all of school age, so I have no lack of extraordinary inspiration, or indeed perspective, around me.
From July, it has been a huge step forwards and genuinely uplifting to see so many people re-connecting with colleagues face-to-face in the office after months of being at home, often in environments that aren’t very conducive to work. You can curate from home, but to create, that’s different – and that’s what we are back to now.
My day starts at 8am with my weekly missive to the whole Knight Frank commercial team. It is supportive and encouraging, offering perspective and practical guidance. Today’s also features a focus on our new data centres business line led by Stephen Beard. If there’s one sector of the real estate market which has boomed during the lockdown, it is this. Traffic through everything from WhatsApp to Netflix has kept data centres humming.
My first meeting is at 9am, with our chairman and board, followed by an update with the leadership team on immediate Covid-related actions, inevitably, but also rather more cheerfully on awards for outstanding contributions.
At 10am I have a Zoom call with the organisers of the upcoming launch of our next cohort of KFX. This is a cross-company initiative, creating specialised boards from across age and experience ranges to increase collaboration and innovation.
Almost 100 people, across eight boards, have come together to help re-engineer Knight Frank. The group is ambitiously diverse and split 50:50 by gender. It has been game changing for the career development of our top talent and gives us access to ideas and energy that shapes our strategic direction and evolution. As well as launching a second cohort, we plan to create a KFX alumni group to keep the engagement active and relevant.
Lunchtime is an M&S prawn mayo sandwich – none better!
At 2pm, I join a review on the progress of our people, place and planet ESG agenda. We discuss, amongst other things, our commitment to massively reducing our own plastic usage and our support for “Surfers against Sewage”.
The pandemic has been a real pressure test for our society. In the same way that an engineer will test a system searching for weak points, so Covid-19 has revealed, or highlighted, the weaknesses in our modern world: inequality, poor governance and frail businesses. We have all reprioritised our critical paths and sustainability and social value is more important than ever before.
During lockdown we created the Covid-19 Property Intelligence Portal, which provided mapped data for sites available at short notice for the NHS and other public authorities. The famous Knight Frank taxi has also been kept busy, with its driver Gary supporting the ambulance service by driving emergency cases to hospital, delivering medication and taking people to be tested.
Being a partnership means Knight Frank can take a longer-term approach: we don’t have to worry about quarterly earnings figures, for example. Of course, stable profits are important, but our structure means we can retain as many of our best team members through the downturn.
Clients appreciate stability, and the feeling that the agency advising them are their partners rather than “here today, gone tomorrow” brokers.
Later, at 4pm, I can’t resist checking in with my London capital markets colleagues. I was an investment agent for 25 years before becoming head of Knight Frank Commercial. I still find the job exhilarating and I take care to keep involved and up to speed.
While thoughts around the future of the office develop, it’s good to know that London is still maintaining its long-term appeal to global investors. Our sale in Soho Square and the trading of the Schroders HQ in the City for sub-4% have emphasised that. The first eight days in October alone have seen £1.2bn worth of London office investment deals transact, as the capital reaffirms its status as an investment safe haven for income-hungry global capital.
Before heading home at 6.30pm, I walk around our Baker Street office to catch up with colleagues and ask about their day. Finally, an informal chat with our residential head Tim Hyatt identifies so many shared experiences and ideas that we can develop together and we both leave properly energised.
The evening is spent with my family: a bit of geography revision, and a book called Dog Man that makes both a nine-year-old and a 50-year-old laugh out loud. Then time for a cheeky beer.
