Your actions are a business card
FIRST job and where are you now?
Place Estate Agents founder Damien Hackett gave me my first full-time role as a receptionist when he was principal at PRD Morningside. It was the mid-1990s and I was earning $120 per week under a Kelly Business School Traineeship.
For the past two years I’ve worked for global real estate services firm JLL, most recently as senior retail and marketing manager at Smith Collective, Australia’s inaugural build-to-rent community at Southport.
Best business advice you’ve ever received?
The way you treat people is your business card. So many people are critical to the success of a business or project and I’ve always gone out of my way to get to know everyone who contributes at all levels. I’m a big believer that how you treat someone really does represent your personality.
What you wish you knew when you first started?
It’s all in the delivery. It took me a little while to learn that but how you deliver your message plays a huge role in selling a concept or vision. The $550 million Smith Collective may be a historymaking development but you can’t just tell stakeholders what the end objective is. You need to educate and excite them so they want to be part of the journey.
Your golden rule in business?
If you say you are going to do something, do it. That sounds simple but I’ve been in this industry long enough to know not everyone does. It comes down to accountability and I know how much I appreciate working with and for people who make a commitment and deliver on it.
A long lunch – a waste of time or essential?
Essential. It’s crucial to grow and maintain relationships both within and outside one’s company and a quality long lunch is still a great way of helping achieve that. Who is in your business mobile’s speed dial?
Not a day goes by where I don’t speak with Smith Collective general manager Tina Grey, who is also JLL’s head of residential management for Queensland. Residential and retail cannot survive without each other on a development like Smith Collective and we have worked incredibly hard to ensure we have the right mix of retail tenants to support our residents and vice versa.
If you had $1 million spare, what industry would you be investing in right now?
Healthcare. With Smith Collective a key asset within the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct, I’m constantly being exposed to the incredible growth and potential of the sector.
What should primary students be studying?
Healthcare and languages. The ability to speak multiple languages is such an asset in the modern world, especially in a country as multicultural and diverse as Australia.
Biggest frustration doing business on the Gold Coast and how to fix it?
I honestly haven’t encountered any. The Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct team, Gold Coast City Council and Economic Development Queensland are aligned in their vision for the precinct’s success, which includes what we are doing at Smith Collective. Working together with one vision, I have no doubt we will collectively deliver the best outcome for the Gold Coast.