Ten years ago, I had a hugely successful career in television. I had worked my way up from a clueless runner, fresh out of university to group Managing Director of a 150-person agency.
My work was super exciting, but at 40 I was a bit restless. Then the private equity firm who’d invested in my company asked me to take a look at one of their struggling portfolios, some later-living developments.
I was instantly hooked and abandoned the vacuous world of TV to throw myself headfirst into tackling the problems surrounding housing for older people. There’s a mad obsession with home ownership in this country. But many older people, especially women who’ve been widowed, don’t have enough left in the tank for another house buy late in life. There’s a massive demand for rental properties suitable for those who are older but want to be part of a buzzing community rather than live in a dreary care home before they need to.
After taking up the role of CEO at Birchgrove, it took a lot of hard graft to get our first development in Sidcup up and running in 2019. We’ve since opened two more developments and have six more in the pipeline, but I’m still really proud of that first property, especially now it’s at full occupancy.
I love challenging the status quo. The look on people’s faces when they visit a development for the first time and find pensioners with FOMO rushing to the bar at opening time or busting it out in the gym is priceless. My mother recently moved into one of our developments and dyed her hair pink to celebrate.
I got to the top in two very male-dominated industries, partly by saying ‘yes’ to everything that came my way. Ironically, my belief in the power of ‘yes’ has sometimes been my downfall. Last year, a planning decision didn’t go our way and I was gobsmacked until a member of my team gave it to me straight. He said people had been scared to tell me a ‘no’ was coming as I only ever wanted to hear yes.
I’ve since hired two senior team members whose brief is to say ‘no’ when necessary. Unfortunately, they do this more often than I’d like, but hopefully this is making me a better leader!
www.birchgrove.life
