As former JLL UK chairman Chris Ireland hosts his retirement party after 40-plus years in the business, he speaks to Samantha McClary about some of the greatest lessons he has learnt.
It took Chris Ireland more than 40 years to write his first resignation letter. And that wasn’t really a resignation, it was a retirement letter. After more than four decades in the business – just the one business (albeit in different guises) – Ireland this week said his final goodbye to JLL with a gathering of the great and the good at The Dilly in London. Here, EG picks his brains for the best insights and intelligence he can share for the next generation of real estate greats.
Ireland never really knew he wanted to work in property. He wasn’t really sure what the sector was all about, but he had just finished a history degree, was in London and he needed a job. A friend of a friend of a friend suggested he have a coffee with a man named Malcolm King. The rest, as they say, is history.
It would be easy to write a retrospective of Ireland’s career at King & Co, King Sturge and JLL, of the deals he has done, the positions he has held and the leader he has been. But as the outgoing UK chair of JLL, a man who has been praised for his integrity, for being a “class act” and for always having time for others, EG thought we’d find out a little bit more about what made Ireland so successful and what tips he has for those keen to forge a similar career.
Key influencers
Let’s start at the beginning, with that first meeting that led him to property, and how King quickly became one the three most important people Ireland encountered during his 40-plus-year career.
“Malcolm was definitely very influential,” says Ireland. “His focus, which he drummed into all of us, was around clients and commitment and integrity. And then enjoy what you’re doing, the people that you’re doing it for and the people that you’re doing it with.”
It is clear that early lesson stuck with Ireland. When he talks about his career, the roles he has played and the lessons he has learnt, it all comes back to service – delivering the best service for clients and making sure he provides a service to his people.
One of those people is Melanie Brandon, a director in JLL’s capital markets team, with whom Ireland has worked for more than 20 years. He recalls a recent encounter where Brandon reminded him that his openness as a leader enabled her to continue in a career where she had felt certain that motherhood would end it.
When Brandon told Ireland that she would need to leave work early because of parental duties, she was sure she would have to quit. Ireland had no problem with it. So much so that he didn’t even remember the conversation until Brandon reminded him of it.
And in classic Ireland style, he rates Brandon as one of the other most influential people in his career. Not just for the deals they have worked on together over 20 years of being teammates, but for helping him understand the importance of diverse teams. Perhaps subconsciously then, but very consciously today, his easy agreement to flex working for Brandon has helped him champion diversity and inclusion.
“I absolutely believe that balanced and diverse teams are more fun to work in. And produce better outcomes,” says Ireland. “We will be a better industry, we will be better businesses if we can really embrace diversity in all its forms, whether that’s around social mobility, around gender, or whether that’s around ethnicity.”
From the man who introduced him to real estate as a career, to the woman who taught him the benefits of diversity, to the competitor he just loved doing deals with. The third influencer Ireland credits with his successful career is Franco Sidoli – one of the sector’s most successful investment agents.
“That is still something that comes through as a distinguishing factor around real estate,” says Ireland when asked how a competitor could play such a positive role in his career. For Ireland, the fact that the pair could work so well on opposite sides of the deal and deliver the best outcomes for their clients is one of the great things about real estate.
The dealmaker
Over the course of four decades, Ireland has played a role in a number of sizeable deals – big deals, complex deals, life-changing deals. Three stick firmly in his mind.
The first was the sale and leaseback of ICI Pension Fund’s headquarters on Millbank, SW1, in 1997 – a complex deal that resulted in a circa £100m sale to M&G.
But the defining deal for him, says Ireland, was in 2005/06 when he was acting for ING on its acquisition of the Sun Life Properties portfolios from Santander, or Abbey National as it was then.
“That was about £1.2bn, and it was tons of assets all over the place,” says Ireland. “We mobilised pretty much the whole of King Sturge. I don’t think there was anybody in the business really that didn’t touch that. The size of that and the complexity was a defining moment. And that was back in the days when £1bn was a big deal.”
He adds: “It was about the scale of the challenge and then also looking at and understanding how ING would break it up afterwards. It spawned multiple different funds post the event.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t good to do nice, easy, straightforward deals, and occasionally you would have those, but I always tended to get more involved in some of the more complicated things through big strategic reviews for clients. That’s really what I would enjoy.”
Complication, having to understand more than just a simple deal, is what has kept Ireland interested for more than 40 years. And while he talks of being fortunate enough to have experienced more straightforward times in the sector in terms of asset classes and portfolio sizes, it is clear he gets excited by how complex and expansive real estate has become today.
“I was very fortunate to have a variety of experiences and I didn’t need to specialise as quickly,” says Ireland. “But now you really have to understand debt markets. You have to be able to talk about joint venture structures. You have to be able to talk about fractional ownership. You have to know what is happening in the public markets. And for the teams here now and people going forwards, I think that’s really exciting.”
The biggest strategic deal of Ireland’s career is, of course, King Sturge’s £197m tie-up with JLL in 2011.
“That was a massive thing for all of us,” he says. He is proud of that deal and how well it has worked. After 12 years, most of the old leadership team of King Sturge have remained at JLL – him until his retirement, Richard Batten until his retirement earlier this year, Phil Marsden, Andrew Frost…
“What was really important to us all was that if we’re going to take everybody on this new venture, we’ve got to be committed it – we can’t let people down,” says Ireland.
Back to that focus on service again. Committing to something, getting it done, and making sure you look after people. Of all the career advice Ireland can offer, it keeps coming back to this.
The humble mentor
Ireland again returns to his very first day in the job, and that fortuitous meeting with Malcolm King. Day one in the job, King took Ireland to a meeting with the firm’s biggest client. Not just the firm’s biggest client, but the most senior person from that client – Andrew Hill of Provident Mutual.
Ireland remembers it well. He says he knew absolutely nothing, and probably didn’t understand much of what was being said back then. But he did listen intently. And he was in the room. He was given the opportunity. And it is that that he has tried to recreate for others throughout his career.
“I have been unbelievably lucky in my career, because I’ve had so many people who were prepared to spend time with me, listening to daft questions, pretending they weren’t daft and answering them,” he says. “All the way through my career, I have wanted to try and replicate that with people in my teams and in the business. Make the time to sit down, listen to people, give your thoughts, help people through. Try and steer people into progression within the business. That has been hugely satisfying.”
When Ireland announced his retirement in February, there was an outpouring of superlatives to describe him. A man of “huge integrity”, a man who “cares deeply about everyone and everything”, a man who always has time for others, a “class act”.
He is visibly embarrassed when the praise is read out, humbled by it, but proud too that the legacy he leaves is that he was a person who listened and who did their best to help people progress.
“When I look back, I consider myself one of the most fortunate people around,” he says. “I’ve had unbelievable opportunities. [Psychologist] John Amaechi, who we have had come in and talk with us, has an expression that the people who got us here are not necessarily the people who are going to take us there. That’s how I think about it. I definitely hope that on the way there are lots of people who I’ve come across that I’ve been able to help to a degree.”
Where they go next, of course, will be up to them.
Words of wisdom
Chris Ireland on…
Collaboration and commitment:
“When you’re faced with opportunities, challenges, situations, think them through as much as you can and bounce ideas off people. Every decision I have come to has been a lot better for talking to a lot of other people that you know and trust before you make that final decision. But once you’ve made it, you then have to really go for it and be committed.”
The market:
“We definitely all need to remember in and around real estate that it’s a cyclical market, and you can be doing everything right for a particular market and then unexpected things happen and turn it upside down. You have to be able to adapt quickly and be quite agile around that. Take as many learnings away as to where we got a little bit overenthusiastic because we thought it was going to go on forever. It never goes on forever. However well you think you’re doing, there are these black swan events and you have to adapt and change. Our careers are as much defined by how you adjust and how you lead businesses through challenges as when it’s really flying.”
Succeeding:
“Whatever the immediate role and job, just make sure you are doing that as well as you possibly can. What I found at each and every stage is that if you do that then other opportunities open up.”
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews
