welcome to 10 the tenant experience network i'm your host david abrams in this episode we are connecting with brian rosen president and ceo canada at colliers international in this episode we learn about brian's non-traditional journey to commercial real estate and his experience bringing teams together to create opportunities where one plus one equals three we discuss the long-term nature of the industry and the role that buildings will play in supporting their business partners brian goes on to say the best operators are investing in amenities and engagement with the tenants and community and that's why tenant experience apps are going crazy our conversation also addresses the importance of esg as just one example of delivering on what tenants want and how the same attention to environmental concerns was an early impetus to the development of hilo in order to reduce print communication and move buildings towards digital connectivity brian is not quite ready to give up on the notion of location location location as a critical driver of real estate decisions but he does believe it's critically important for properties to have a vision and a commitment to technology tenant experience and connection to community and amenities we're excited to be sharing this podcast with you so be sure to subscribe to 10 so you never miss an episode of the tenant experience network and now i'd like to welcome brian to the show i'm really glad you could be with us today how are you i'm doing well thanks david thanks for having me on my pleasure so tell us about your journey to your current position your current role how did you get started sure uh so kind of non-traditional a little bit for uh for for this position but joined colliers in 2019 uh in in the halcyon days when when people could actually get together more frequently but uh it came from my background uh i spent uh many years about a decade at iron mountain which is a large uh occupier it's a reit um and spent time in corporate strategy before that but i joined colliers in 2019 to form uh to assume a new position the chief operating officer for canada really was a it was a planned succession role for for our longtime ceo uh dave for canada david bowden who subsequently moved in and started a new business for us in canada our strategy and consulting business but it was a plan succession and i came in in uh 19 uh spent a year learning the business learning uh meeting clients meeting meeting employees going around everywhere and then i stepped into the ceo chair on march of 2020 uh so good timing very well timed very well timed uh it's it's it's interesting i was on a different podcast uh right in the middle of the pandemic and and we made a joke that it was uh i'm kind of a black swan i graduated undergrad and you know business.com bust and graduated business school great financial crisis so kind of was fitting that that i came on board uh during that time period but but it's been great i've been in the chair almost about two years now and colliers was looking for a little bit of a different perspective on the business someone outside the industry but real estate adjacent uh and uh that's that's why they looked at me and and i came on board and it's been it's been a great ride for two years crazy weird it wouldn't have ever in a million years guessed it would have been like this of course um but but still fun nonetheless yeah interesting i once heard a founder of another startup talk about how they recruit and how they often will look outside of their industry which is very atypical often you know you want someone to let's say have sales you'll you'll find someone in sales at a previous sas startup but his approach is i can do that already i can you know it's not that hard to find someone that's done what we already do i'd rather bring someone in that brings a completely different approach different different experience um and we'll look at it you know really in a very unique manner so i think that's awesome when people have the um the wherewithal to actually you know exercise on that plan it's not it's not not easy always it isn't and and we we typically don't do that and and so i was definitely an anomaly uh in that in that standpoint but we've done it in our in our business particularly in our brokerage business uh we've mixed in a lot of new over the last two three years a lot of new md's from outside the industry we've blended it because you can't have all new people in there right you have to have a mix of some experienced hands to train them and provide you know this is how it's been done and how it will be done but it's been really really effective for us getting experienced business leaders in that uh can add a different perspective for for our brokers and for our clients but they have to be quick learners they you have to you have to get up to speed in this business you got to want to get out there and do it it's a people business yeah for sure and again the non-traditional entry into into real estate so again i'll ask you know why do you think you were so uniquely suited for this opportunity so what helped you to become successful in this role which was perhaps unique to your your experience i think i i've had a lot of um experience with bringing together teams and and colliers has multiple different types of businesses now we're very decentralized that's part of what what makes us uh special it's uh really derives from from the peter drucker uh school of management uh jay henneck our global ceo uh and larger shareholder he's he was literally a mentee of of of peter drucker so that uh methodology has been infused in our business um so we've we've built all these amazing uh engines that run uh almost independently uh for years so what i have a lot of experience doing is bringing together and integrating value propositions and and getting teams to work together and collaborate and bring out the you know the old trade expression one plus one is three right and so that experience with just the large complex organizations and and really uh uh being being in a professional services organization you have to want to be with with people all the time uh it doesn't have to be in person as we're gonna talk about always but uh being with clients being with people uh i think it's such a critical element and that's that's something that that for me has been part of my management journey for uh for 20 years 20 years sorry sorry yeah yeah don't date yourself no don't don't worry i go like this and i feel i feel so smooth and that dates me pretty quickly as well um listen there's a lot of commentary right now around the return to the workplace and there are some very extreme opinions being expressed often confrontational sometimes polarizing uh my team and i really believe that everyone needs to live and work in the world as it is right now we've decided that this is it um you know there's no imaginary date uh in the future this is the world as it is um so i'm just curious the commercial real estate industry and employers i don't think we continue to projecting you know to that date as to what that might be um you know what is the return to normal you know and perhaps living in the world with covet as it is right now is our new normal so i've got a few questions to ask you in light of all that preamble you know around what do you think this means for the commercial real estate industry yeah that's a big question i mean i think uh let me unpack some some elements of that i think uh you know i agree with you that we can't always be looking out to well what's gonna be the the final place it it's uh you know i go back to the the dot-com situation um in 2001 where what happened was we had this huge rush to e-commerce all these new things that no one ever saw before and then it blew up yeah but where where the reversion to the mean was the resting place was still much more advanced for e-commerce right even though there was a humongous reversion so i think we're in the middle kind of of a little bit of a market correction but there will be a reversion to the mean so you know we we've i think some of these proclamations were way too early we were saying what the world was going to be like in the middle of an experiment with no variable and control there was only variable we also thought that experiment was going to last you know six weeks or three months or six months so that was part of the problem and it was impossible to determine what it would look like because you know when 90 of people are working from home of course it works better than it would be if you're at 60 40 or 40 60 or 80 20. it's just an unfair comparison so i think we're in no position to make those proclamations so you know i think pragmatically i agree with you we're in the world we're in right now we have to make it work for the foreseeable future but real estate is a 50-year game right we we we build assets that last a long time so we have to project we have to make decisions on what it's going to be like and we have to take a little bit of a stance and say i'm going to sign a 10-year lease got to have a little bit of a sense of what what the future is going to be and how much space i need so i think there is a projection that has to be made about you know what do we really think is is going to work now we can get into it i have my my points of view on on the office and the importance of it but but i do think you have to recognize where we're in now but you have to make a five and ten year view in our business or else you can't make an investment no one would ever buy a building again because be like i don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow right and certainly there have been lots of transactions that have taken place over the last you know year or two and certainly the last many months um so listen i think buildings are critical i think they're part of an ecosystem now um versus you know a standalone that you know the world stops and starts with your workplace um i think the workplace and what the workforce needs is going to continue to evolve so from your perspective any thoughts on how buildings can continue to be important to businesses and people absolutely first of all they're incredibly important for collaboration uh and you know when you you can you can do collaboration over over video it absolutely can happen it's not as good um and so when you when you when you get people together there's a certain level of spark innovation there's collaboration there's relationships it's it's what zuma's and and teams and everything has enabled us to do is continue to foster relationships with people we know right what what's missing is sort of the inadvertent relationships uh and and the micro relationships so we're kind of still coasting on a lot of the relationship capital we built pre-pandemic absolutely you know it's the new people and that's where we're missing there's that real gap of of you know new people starting in a company hell if i didn't have that one year to meet everyone i'd be so much uh more challenging in my role as a ceo but i built up relationships with people um and and was able to to manage through that so the office provides in particular a great area for this collaboration it's relationship brainstorming etc so i think as as a as a communal point for that it's going to play a critical role for foreseeable future uh you know that now how does that evolve do people need to always be sitting at their desk by themselves staring at a screen that's not really collaborating it's not really so there's there's a balance so some roles absolutely are well suited and the technology has enabled us to become more more hybrid for that so it really depends on your industry it depends on the type of role that you have within an industry but there is a role that the office plays and will continue to play for that agreed agreed um you know i really believe that buildings have an obligation perhaps more so than ever before to work with employers to help attract and retain the best talent and hopefully bring people back to buildings because that is to where to your point you know creation collaboration inspiration you know culture gets built and i'm not saying it can't be done just to appease those you know the right side of the conversation i'm not saying that any of those cannot be fulfilled in some form or fashion virtually but i don't think it's quite the same so from your perspective do you think the building has a role to play in supporting the employer in this new creating this new way forward 100 and you see that with with the best uh investors uh that are landlords that are they're not just sitting by and go come to my building it's a good building you know you know it's hey i bought this that's all i need to do no no they're investing in it the amenities are so critical and becoming even more critical how do you attract people back in well you have to redesign the the attraction of coming to it to an office right so uh you know historically that's why you have think about toronto the path system and and all the retail and maybe that's going to have to evolve too so we see malls evolving their mix of stores those people the in-person shopping experience is changing we're going to see that with retail in uh uh the retail that's in a building uh the amenities the ability to have you know tenant experience apps uh uh all the different functionality that comes with that engagement with tenants and engagement with the building and engagement with the community it's critical that's why tenant experience apps are are going crazy i know it's a vested interest in this audience here but i would be saying that if um you know any anybody off the street was asking me about this and i spoke at another event about it it's it's because the landlords are engaging with the tenant they have to make this a place even another example that think about the esg initiatives that are going on some of that's because it's business it's cheaper to to save money on energy some of it is because of uh you know morality and and societal uh desires some of it's because you want to engage with tenants who are demanding it right and so there's an accountability on the landlord in the building to cater towards the tenants what they want you will attract a better higher covenant or valuable tenant with larger needs if you offer more things they want so i think you'll agree that landlords building owners operators are certainly listening more so to tenants than ever before um and and it's not just the person that signs the lease it's really understanding the needs of the entire um occupant experience um so that's that's a good thing i think for the industry yes um and it's interesting when you talked about uh esg because that really in some indirect way that is really one of the reasons why hilo even exists today when i first wrote the strategy document for creating a digital communication platform delivered to your smartphone it was because buildings were going at that time for their leed certification they were thinking about being more green more eco-conscious more sustainable and the main method of communication at that time was print and we were you know we were desk dropping all kinds of printed materials on everyone's desk and all of a sudden everyone was saying that's not going to work anymore so correct it's interesting to see how you know what is now all about really tenant experience but it started more from an environmental uh push so i just reflected on that as you mentioned that yeah um so we believe the pandemic has sort of recalibrated the market to recognize that buildings are really places for people you know we've all got buildings right now in some cases they're relatively low occupancy levels i think we'll agree it's not much of an asset when there's nobody in it um so people are the real asset not the building itself and as a result tenant experience to your point earlier is now becoming you know the real differentiator and is driving real estate decisions uh perhaps more so than those historic determinators such as location in class so i'm just curious um if now is truly about creating the best customer experience for tenants can you share your thoughts on how we will define that you know in this new world today and going forward yeah i i don't think it's i still think location location location is a good way to think about it i mean you know why why is a building so desirable if it's on a transit hub if it's you know got got uh the surrounding area i mean i think location is is so inextricably linked with a building's value uh but but you can have two buildings in the same location and why is one more popular than another and that's where the the age of the building the amenities the layout the design uh the tenant experience all that starts to play in there so all things being being considered but location is still obviously i would say absolutely essential and critical factor um for the building um so so so sorry getting back to the the the question yeah yeah just sort of you know how will we define custody if experience is going to be a major differentiator right maybe not the only one or maybe not even more important than location but pretty significant what does that look like and you know in a world where we're trying to now recognize that you know hybrid will likely win the day my perspective um people are going to work where it's best how does experience within buildings you know what role does that play it plays a big role so so one of the things we didn't talk about before and that's it's tagged to this is it's a there's a flight to quality in some regards that's going on right now and so you no more is that more um apparent in calgary where you hear all these horror stories about the vacancies which is which is real but in the in the uh the highest caliber office in the in the a aaa area that the vacancies not not nearly the same as it is um in in just slightly lower class you know the b and c building things um so it's it's it's very clear even at very tough market the the vacancy is is is low um because it there is a flight to quality and and you see that in in going on right now still too in in the major markets toronto vancouver etc i really like that perspective that you know bringing in the notion that quality can now be the the the reason why you know you can offset some of the the downside it it is and that's where some of the experience comes in and and what it what it looks like i i don't think it's going to be cookie cutter i think as we as you know we're talking about tenant experience and the ability to deliver more amenities is going to be critical so you you know the ability to and that amenity the ability to deliver amenities can come in different ways it can come through the the technology uh in the building um you know having modern technology that makes it easy and seamless to interact with the building whether it's uh uh you know the the touchless type of stuff or the or the the smart elevators that all the different types of things that just make the building uh uh easier and better and more more enjoyable and seamless interaction um and lower operating costs too which which the tenants bear uh uh as well so so there's that there's that aspect of it there's the tenant experience there's also the selection of how your building is connected into the amenities of the area so you know we talked about location are you located on transit hubs are you located by great retail what type of retail is in your building what type of entertainment is in your building so as before maybe you get a rabba a convenience store maybe you get a um um you know shoppers or things like that and maybe that's exactly right for the for the location you're in but maybe actually having uh an escape room building is probably better for you i i don't know the answer the answer is it's going to be bespoke but as we start seeing these uh we call it place making where you're creating a place you're creating you know you're seeing this in mass now where you see these large plots of land that start getting developed into innovation hubs or life science hubs you're going to start seeing that with these buildings too at an asset level this is now a life science past that where the building is going to have headquarters for 18 different startup tech companies and life sciences et cetera et cetera so it's those types of things where it's the overall experience can take many shapes and forms but it's attractive to the target group that's looking there so it's a little bit of a punt on the answer i'm not going to give you a specific but it's a catered bespoke offer that that's why it makes it so important that you have a vision in mind for your asset or for your your community even more so the place i think we've got you know several examples emerging in our city that speak to that um and i think it also speaks to what you know how and why we designed hi-lo as a platform and not just a a building app completely confined to four walls of a building because to your to your point yes you can determine it needs a rob on you know it it might be a dry cleaner but maybe it does need the escape room but maybe the escape room is three blocks away so right we really designed hi-lo to not only capture what's in the building but also connect to the neighbor connect to the community exactly and draw on those resources so that they're actually seen as amenities as well exactly it's it's everything is appropriate for the area that you're in and and and that's why there's there's there's no negative or positive with having something associated with an asset so i talked about in the same same uh breath of having a high-end um uh restaurant or a convenience store well it depends on what your your population of your your business they're both great um so there's none of our pejorative it's just it's a it's what's appropriate for the asset and for the community as you said it's the community so the whole live work play which is why i thought the whole death to the city thing was a it was such a a hot take that was irrelevant um i mean cities have gone through plagues and fires and everything and people come back because it's a congregate setting where everybody's together there's entertainment there's action there's there's there's um uh you know the tribal aspect of people being together that's not gonna go away just because you can get a little bit more space for some people sure but then there's other people that are gonna come right back in and fill the void i agree 100 uh listen let's take a quick break and we'll be right back this episode of 10 is proudly brought to you by hilo hilo is a rapid deployment tenant engagement platform for the hybrid world the pandemic has created shock waves across the commercial real estate industry and now more than ever we realize that the most important asset of a building is the people building operators and employers now recognize that people want new kinds of spaces services and amenities to accommodate a hybrid workforce tenant engagement solutions that support the hybrid workforce connecting people to buildings no matter where they are have become a major differentiator as buildings compete to retain current tenants and attract new ones hilo empowers forward-thinking building operators to meet this challenge to learn more about hilo visit hiloapp.com we're back with brian rosen president and ceo of colliers canada a global leader in real estate services and investment management thanks again for being with us glad to be here we're living through a pandemic it certainly has been challenging for so many people but it's also provided an opportunity to as i like to say be better do better and build something better can you share any details on any aspect of your business some part uh that you can share with our audience of listeners uh that is now being reimagined to reflect reality of where we are today so there's i mean i think there's a lot of different parts of the business that we've flexed and changed i think a big part like a lot of other companies is is how we've adapted to uh blending into a hybrid hybrid management so as i look across them we have an extremely different set of workforces so we have uh you know probably the largest third-party property management uh the largest third third-party project management firm those types of firms as an example plus the brokerage are completely different needs so our project managers have found the ability to work remotely is is absolutely is great it's it's adding the ability they don't need to be in an office because they're usually with a client or their home or wherever you're managing a project so it's incorporating that but the brokerage side of the house can't wait to get back in the office um and and the property management uh is kind of a mix they're on on the actual assets they're in the office accounting teams you think well accounting they can work for anywhere sure there's also benefits from being together so it's adopting that that's how do we actually figure out the space in our building so we're advising our clients on that and we're struggling and trying to figure it out ourselves yeah and and you know this group fifty percent this group's eighty percent this group is twenty percent how do we use our tenant experience apps to help uh book desks uh i've put my office up on the block so if anyone wants to use it when i'm not here i'm traveling um absolutely it's it's not that big don't worry um it's the exact same as every other office um that's all right that's all right so but it's it's it's that type of approach but also we had to make a major investment to retrofit our uh boardrooms and conference rooms to have teams technology they were all mishmash and so that was a big investment we made at the end of last year and into this year so it's that type of i wish i could say it was novel but we're going through it just like everyone else and it's beneficial for our business to figure out how to how to do that because we're trying to adapt also what the talent wants and and some talent wants to be in the office some wants to be remote to be honest we don't have a choice like your job necessitates one or the other so that's just the nature of the jobs yeah i think the thought you're going through this yourself as a corporate entity and and sharing it publicly thank you with our with our listeners you know also helps in your discussions with your tenants as well that you know be to have empathy towards what you know they're trying to figure out what they're going through and provide counsel also based in part i would imagine on your own experience exactly and and we've we've seen gone through each iteration i've signed multiple leases during this during this uh pandemic uh one for a slight reduction of space one for an increase in space so we're going through all the different types of uh of efficiency benefits we're growing so fast that we we actually need more space so it's it's i would say adapting to how do you actually make it work so going back to our first conversation actually projecting forward five years and saying how could we make some of this work and what are some of the optionalities if things change right great insights brian thank you so much uh our closing speed rounds an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better um so here we go can you share uh one way in which epidemic has changed your outlook on life so i'm gonna be boring on this one it hasn't at all wow um like i i don't know why it would other than um you know i'm bored uh like a lot of other people i haven't i haven't traveled in two years and and i haven't gone to restaurants and um i would admit my family were probably a little bit more on the cautious side so so we just don't do that but that hasn't changed my outlook uh i'm still the things i like are the things i like the things that are important to me to things are important to me i just wear a mask more often and and haven't i'm more bored right now but okay fair enough fair enough well you spoke about travel what travel destination do you miss most my my folks live in florida um and we i've been going down there uh every year since i was born because my grandparents lived there too and so not having a chance to go down there for a couple years has been has been not so great we have a trip booked there finally uh so we'll be going there in april but uh right but it's been uh that's that's been the one spot that's been i mean there's a whole bunch of places i wanna i wanna go that we've canceled our trips and stuff but that's the one that's the uh you know because it's in my family too most important totally get it um anything new on your bucket list that you'd like to try to experience i don't really have a bucket list um there's lots of i mean just going back to the travel thing probably going to different places like we want to go to costa rica australia you know and so but uh i don't know i don't i don't think that far ahead for my personal uh personal life business i'm i got too many five-year plans for my business so i can't i can't five-year plan my life you don't want to strategize your life i i let my family do that for me okay what's your favorite technology that is new to your life um so i don't really have and personally anything new but uh you know from the business perspective i do i i do enjoy the the tenant experience stuff and and and the apps and i'm looking forward to using it more in terms of uh uh as like back into the office and getting with the building engaging with uh booking desks and things like that that that uh i mean it sounds boring sounds like a boring real estate guy answer but but for me i i i'm pretty uh uh non-tech inventive at home uh but um i actually spent most of my career selling technology so um you know uh uh anyway but i i i think the practicality of it and and and therefore it will impact you know your day-to-day life in that and so i think that's a good thing yeah uh personal choice for days spent in person with your colleagues versus working from anywhere i'd rather be with my colleagues um and i've i'm most of my career i've been able to because i was in a street uh corporate strategy roles for a while where you could work from anywhere and then in my first leadership role half of my team was in montreal and the other half was in in toronto so uh and then the next role i had after that they were in four different cities in the us so most of the time i've actually been working uh with virtual as as a portion of it um so i'm very comfortable with that but i'm an extrovert i'm uh i'm [Music] stand-up comedy like all these things i want to be with the crowd in a crowd in front of a crowd and that's what makes me oh so that's that's my choice okay i don't have a question about comedy are you serious about stand-up comedy you used to do it yeah i used to do it it's been a while it's been about it's been about uh 10 years but uh but i did it for about about 20.
very cool uh 15. sorry not that old not that all the mic i did the math on that one it didn't work out awesome all right listen brian thank you so much for being with us today uh there's so much to continue to talk about uh in and around buildings and and return to work and i'm hybrid and um it's exciting to be able to connect with senior real estate professionals and have these conversations so thank you very much for coming on the program i look forward to continuing our conversation and perhaps even having you back on the show on a future date great no i had i had fun this was great thanks david okay thanks so much you'd be well now take care i want to thank brian rosen for joining me on this episode of 10 and for contributing to the global conversation around buildings being part of a robust ecosystem that can help to build great companies and that they are vital in the effort to cultivate and support great people and teams the future of the workplace will likely take many forms and we will continue to explore what that looks like together subscribe to 10 for more conversations with leading cre industry professionals and experts who all have something to say about 10th experience and the future of the workplace we love hearing from you so if you enjoyed this episode of 10 please share add your rating and review us through your preferred podcast provider if you or someone you know would like to be a guest on a future episode please reach out to me directly at david hilo and until our next episode i wish you continued success in building community where you work and live thank you
2022-03-11