TOMORROW’S LEADERS Morgan Garfield, co-founder of community shopping centre specialist Ellandi, said working for a large corporate gave him the best grounding to launch his own business.
However, Garfield, who set up Ellandi in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008 with retail property investor Mark Robinson to acquire distressed loans and turnaround assets, admits he defied his peers and his family, who warned him against leaving the security of full-time employment.
A banker at Rothschild and then Deutsche Bank before starting Ellandi, Garfield said: “When you tell your parents you are leaving a successful corporate job to go and rent a desk in the corner of someone else’s office with one other guy, they justifiably question your wisdom.
“I got mail in the post with teacher training application forms that my mum had arranged for me so I would consider an alternative career.”
He added that the best advice he had received in his career was to “do something you enjoy with people who are good at it”.
At Rothschild we were taught to do things properly across a variety of transactions that would just appear on your desk day after day. That does give you training you cannot replicate anywhere else.”
Listen to Garfield on the Tomorrow’s Leaders podcast, talking about starting his venture in a pub, career highlights and regrets, why he does not believe the internet is killing the high street, and why young people should take risks.
This article was originally published on 27th July 2017.
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