Amanda Clack has had more career peaks than the Atlas Mountains in a wonderfully blended working life spanning more than 30 years! This has included partnerships at two of the Big Four accounting firms and being President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, or RICS, for 17 months in 2016 and Amanda was only the second female to hold this office, becoming the 135th President since 1868. She was also the longest serving in 123 years. “I applied for 10 jobs as a trainee when I was 18 and was offered all of them. And, I have been lucky in that I have never really applied for another one again”.
Since October 2017, in something of a perfect professional culmination, Amanda has become the Head of Strategic Consulting at CBRE; following “a conversation”. This awesome journey, too, has had a common denominator i.e. it is underpinned (sic) by a love for the built environment. “I have to pinch myself sometimes to see if I am really where I am. I am the luckiest girl in the World as I really love my job, and always have”.
It all started, though, much more prosaically. In fact, Amanda blames Lego and a Hornby train sets for an early interest in construction… “our family lived in Essex near the M25 when it was being built. We knew the Clerk of Works and he would drive me around the site in his Land Rover. It was incredibly exciting and I loved it; and I loved watching such a major project being developed and that’s really how I became interested in construction”.
Amanda went on to say “Very early on, too, I learned what I didn’t like and what I didn’t want to do. I knew I wanted to be out there making a difference”.
The latter is a common theme for Amanda; and, indeed, a common reality. “Yes, I could have gone straight to University full-time, but there was also the option of being able to be working and studying simultaneously; which I preferred – albeit much to the chagrin of my school. But this came full circle though as I later ended up as an Associate Governor of my old school, the Ursuline Convent High School in Brentwood.
“And, yes, maybe I missed out a bit on enjoying life whilst at University full time but I wouldn’t have changed things – then or now” Prior to this, however, Amanda had a brief flirtation with a musical career. “At 18, I was also studying for a teaching diploma at the Royal School of Music. I played the piano but very quickly realised that I was just not good enough for this ever to be a realistic career. Music, however, has remained a life-long passion”.
Amanda’s first employer was BDB and she worked four days a week as a trainee QS with one day day-release to University.
She then joined Hornagold & Hills as a Project Manager (PM) and stayed 14 years including eight as a partner. For the record – and well after Amanda’s departure – H&H was taken over by Mouchel Parkman in 2006 which, in turn, was taken over by Kier in 2015.
Some 10 years at PwC followed where Amanda was a Partner and led the consulting business across South East England with a focus on mid-market FTSE250 clients. She also established the ‘Programme Management Competency’ for PwC.
From there it was a shorter stint, as a Partner at EY (aka Ernst & Young) as Head of Infrastructure (Advisory) with a leading role across the public and private sectors and particularly transport, energy and assets, plus ‘the cities agenda’.
Amanda joined CBRE in October last year as Head of Strategic Consulting. “Why wouldn’t I do it… It is bread and butter for me. I am specialising in C-suite clients and I am able to join up our firm in bringing the full cadre of services CBRE does – by bringing the firm and the very best of CBRE to our clients”.
For the uninitiated, C-Suite or C-Level is a widely-used idiom to collectively refer to a corporation’s most important senior executives i.e. the top senior executive title all begin with the letter ‘C’ as in:
Chief Executive Officer (CEO); Chief Financial Officer (CFO); Chief Operating Officer (COO); and Chief Information and Investment Officer (CIO).
Essentially, she specialises in advising clients at Board level on their strategic real estate requirements – as investor, occupier or developer.
CBRE Group Inc. is the largest commercial real estate services and investment firm in the World. Headquartered in Los Angeles it operates more than 450 offices internationally and has clients in more than 100 countries. Its origins date back to 1906 and today it offers a wide range of skills including facilities management to occupiers of commercial real estate, property management, leasing plus capital markets, appraisal, and brokerage services to owners of commercial real estate.
The Head of Strategic Consulting, too, was a new position. CBRE supports Urbanity and Technology, which are two key areas for the Sector and the profession moving forward. “We also have two types of key clients within the cardre – investor and occupier – and we seek to bring the best of our knowledge to them at a practical level to enhance property value. This means helping them improve their investment and occupied portfolios and how they can deliver value through corporate real estate and, especially, in terms of workplace. We focus on property but also in the context of people’s interactions with it, and its location in terms of place”.
“CBRE’s Global Cities Report Looking at the top global cities and what place do they have. For example, Shanghai with a population of 24 million is the same size as Australia. Cities are literally taking on nations. And, we need to focus on urbanity how people occupy that space, the role of technology and especially the value green space. And how we optimise that to a place where people want to be. Ultimately, too, that ends up in a real estate value”.
“Property, People and Place is our focus” as Amanda says about CBRE. Providing “Intelligence, Insight and Information being what we bring” plus “leadership in technology and data. “I have been very impressed with the technological expertise of the CBRE team who are market leading in PropTech”.
“The whole firm is my team. Although I am very well known in the UK I am also working extensively internationally too. CBRE is transnational, and so am I”.
“Essentially, I am a problem solver. And I am delivering the benefits of my experience to our clients; coupled with the professional technical skill set of CBRE.”
“I have my own ‘reverse mentor’. This is a first in my career, but great fun and a great help, especially since I am relatively new here. Albeit this is not unusual at CBRE.”
“Yes, I have had, and still have conventional mentors in my career too; and I mentor people too, in return. One of my favourite mentors had a very different sort of background to me. He had been a speech writer for Margaret Thatcher. He was a masterful communicator and the doyen of nuance. He taught me a lot”.
But Amanda is also a complete learner with 44 letters and one word after her name on her business card, where the suffixes run to two lines:
MSc BSc PPRICS FRICS FICE FAPM FRSA CCMI FIC, CMC and AffilatelCEAW.
Okay, MSc and BSc are easy being a “Master of Science in X” plus a “Bachelor of Science in Y”.
Similarly, PPRICS and FRICS is straight forward, too, being “Past President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors” and “Fellow of the RICS”.
The others:
FICE is Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers;
FAPM is Fellow of the Association for Project Managers;
FRSA is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts;
CCMI is “Companion of the Chartered Management Institute”;
FIC is Fellow of the Institute of Consulting
CMC stands for “Certified Management Consultant”; and, finally, AffilateICEAW which is an “Affiliate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales”.
“I actually took them off for many years but then put them back on when I was RICS President. I think it is important. The letters show accomplishment, standards, ability and they establish trust and credibility, especially overseas.”
“The game is changing too”, Amanda adds. “We need to be first and to provide something different into the market place in terms of property technology, thought leadership and being leading edge. You need to remain relevant and be ahead of the current thinking to bring real value”.
The softer sides of service and work also now occupy equal seats in the board room next to the profit and loss account – and in particular diversity and inclusion. This is something Amanda has been championing for a number of years, having helped establish the Women in Project Management Group some 25 years ago, and more recently through leading the agenda on addressing the ‘War for Talent’. She has also recently co-authored a book (in German) which is a CEO’s guide to diversity and inclusion in real estate, which is being published globally in English later this year.
Diversity, too, embraces a range of dimensions: age; race; ethnicity; gender; sexual orientation; religion; disability; personality; socioeconomic status; and life experience. The most high-profile of these in construction is gender. And when Amanda was President of the RICS, the World’s largest global professional body in land, property and the built environment, only 14% of its 100,000 members were female. However, at graduate level though, 23% are female, so the dial is changing.
At CBRE, 25% of Directors are female and one third of the staff. But amongst the graduates it is also rising to where it is now 50:50. In terms of graduates, at least, this represents significant progress and much of it has to do with the changing image of working in the construction industry. “Stereotypical images prevail still”, says Amanda. “We need to educate the educators. Inspire. Plus promote a greater diversity of role models”.
“Everything is about construction. It makes a difference to people’s lives. Walk down a street, see buildings and, a surveyor will have been involved. Surveyors are also proprietorial; they talk about ‘my building’. The profession offers job certainty too; a passport worldwide – the RICS is in 158 countries; and offers a professional passport to the future”.
The scale of the work to be done is also enormous, with an estimate that the international infrastructure gap is $US 57 trillion. “There is great pressure to keep building; and to build the right things. Infrastructure is a great economic enabler for wider development opportunities. Technology will help and the industry will need to be increasingly dynamic in how it provides services. Education and training are vital as is creating trust in professional competence”.
The latter also needs to be three-fold: “attract the next generation; keep those that we have; and train and develop them”. “We truly are fighting a War for Talent”.
“In the UK alone, we need an estimated £410 billion to be spent on infrastructure over 10 years. But we lost 270,000 jobs in the Global Financial Crisis – and need 230,000 just to do the planned work through 2020. At the same time, 30% of skilled construction workers are aged 50 or over and some 430,000 people will have retired in the decade 2010 through 2020”.
“Another issue is the presence of EU nationals working in the UK building industry. Okay this is just 9% nationwide but 54% in London. What will happen post Brexit? We are standing on a skills cliff edge”.
Confoundingly, too, “it is a cyclical industry and risk averse. Similarly, its structure and business model are not conducive to fostering skills. Part of this issue, though, lies at the clients’ door. Of course, any client wants value for money but prices and margins have been pushed further and further down. This causes frustration for both consumer and provider, exacerbates business failure and stifles innovation. It needs to change, with initiatives like Project 13 seeking to consider whole asset value. But there are glimmers of hope in terms of BIM (Building Information Modelling), off-site manufacture, 3D printing and the like. But it needs to go quicker”.
Amanda did acknowledge that the UK has entered a period of uncertainty on the back of the Brexit negotiations; and that levels of activity will not be as good this year and next as they were in a pleasantly surprising 2017. This aside she says that “even with Brexit there is still huge investor interest in the UK; and they are taking a long-term view. The UK remains a very attractive place, a very attractive economy. Why wouldn’t you invest?”.
Could here be another Global Financial Crisis? “It is possible to have another one but we have learned a lot from the last one and the World is now a very small place. So, I would say no”.
Amanda Clack has had a truly magnificent career; which continues. And for lesser mortals, one partnership at a Big four accountant would have been enough, let alone two. Venerability she has in abundance, as well, together with a truck full of fellowships, awards and special assignments, not to mention being the longest serving RICS President in 123 years and only the second female to hold the office. In essence, her career path has led inexorably and seamlessly to the job she has now: Head of Strategic Consulting for the largest commercial real estate services and investment firm in the World. It is the perfect and professional culmination of a blended career. Amanda Clack is a tall vivacious woman. She is passionate about what she does – and lives it. She is also compassionate and totally devoid of hubris. Very clearly, she is principled, too, emphatic and knows exactly what she wants. Amanda is demanding but fair and a core desire is “to make a difference”. As she also says: “what gets measured, gets done”.
