“Because there is very little innovation and very little change from what has been on offer for years and decades, even a slight improvement will be appreciated and will, will differentiate one business and one product from the other. So I think there’s a huge opportunity for all of us and I think it’s, it will move us all as an industry, as individuals, as businesses, as products that will remain for decades in the right direction.”
Susan Freeman
Hi, I’m Susan Freeman. Welcome back to our PropertyShe podcast series brought to you by Mishcon de Reya in association with the London Real Estate Forum, where I get to interview some of the key influencers in the world of real estate and the built environment. Today, I am delighted to welcome Bishoy Azmy. Bishoy is the CEO of Innovo Group, an industry leader in construction and innovation across the built environment. Innovo specialises in the design, construction, development and financing of major real estate projects across four continents and its HQ is in London. Innovo’s core principles are focussed on harnessing the smartest technology and innovative sustainability practices to create positive disruption across the traditional construction and real estate sectors. Bishoy joined ASGC Group in 2002, one of the leading contractors in the UAE and was there for twenty years, the last ten years as Chief Executive. The business worked on some of the most iconic developments across the Middle East, such as Dubai Airport, Dubai Mall, Bluewaters Island and Marsa Al Arab. Starting at ASGC and expanding this at Innovo, Bishoy developed a business model to support infrastructure upgrades to cities around the world supported by international creditors. This has allowed the business to build airports, hospitals, roads, sewage and water networks, bridges and factories in countries ranging from Senegal and Angola to Jordan and Ukraine. Bishoy has an Executive MBA from London Business School and a Masters in Internation Construction Management from the University of Bath. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School and holds a BEng in Construction from The American University in Cairo.
So, now we’re going to hear from Bishoy Azmy about global construction company Innovo, the thinking behind moving to London and their investment in technology and AI to disrupt the construction industry. Bishoy, good morning. Lovely to speak to you today. I think you’re in London at the moment?
Bishoy Azmy
Correct. Thank you, Susan.
Susan Freeman
And I think London is almost as hot as Dubai, I mean it feels, feels that way.
Bishoy Azmy
It is warm enough.
Susan Freeman
So, let’s set the background for our listeners with a short, very short summary about you and your career path and we’ll then get to how you set up Innovo in 2020.
Bishoy Azmy
So I was born in Egypt. My parents were civil engineers. They worked as civil servants in the Egyptian Government and then in the mid-eighties they moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and they worked in the private sector, the two of them, and I joined my father’s business after I finished my education as a civil engineer as well and after working for that business for twenty years, I decided it was time to move out and create a new company that built on whatever learnings or success we’ve had in my previous years of working. So, where we had reached at that point was that we were a successful builder, a contractor, of many different, large and complex projects, primarily in the UAE. Where my aspirations were at that point in time were to try and benefit from that amazing experience and see how we can not necessarily do construction globally because I think it’s a, it’s a very local and a very demanding industry in terms of requirements for local supply chain and knowledge, but more on the real estate and technology in the built environment on a global scale and we created Innovo and the reason why we called the company Innova was to remind ourselves every day, in fact multiple times every day, how we are focussing on innovation in our space in the built environment and we set up our HQ in London and we operate today in about ten countries in various formats and we consider that the business has three pillars, the largest one by revenue is construction and we continue to work primarily in the UAE which is an amazing environment and has done fantastically well over the last two years since Innovo was formed and then we are involved in real estate development opportunities and projects here in London, on the other side of the Atlantic in Toronto, Canada, in Africa, in Egypt and in Asia and the UAE and KSA, that’s Saudi Arabia, and our third, which is the one we’re most excited about but is very much embryonic, is the focus on technology in the built environment and to expand a little bit on that. It’s how can we use technology, ranging from things, you know, that everyone talks about like AI, but also robotics, also data analytics, to address the pain points in the built environment, things like affordability in housing, things like sustainability and material user, just things like energy efficiency, things like security and things like wellness because any human is in touch with the built environment, right, so we don’t live in the Savannahs in Kenya, we live in an artificial environment not the natural environment and so our interaction with this built environment, be it the bedroom we’re sleeping in or the office we’re working in or the hospital we’re being treated in or the university we’re studying in, impacts us and our health and our life and our psyche, so how can we introduce wellness and technology into this space to address pain points is sort of my passion and ambition. So, there is our traditional construction, there is our more aspirant real estate development and there is ultimately the holy grail, I hope I did not bore you.
Susan Freeman
No, I’m very excited about that and the fact that you’re actually talking about using technology to address pain points because there’s a lot of talk about technology but it doesn’t necessarily solve any particular problems. So, we will you know drill down into that later in the discussion but just to set the scene a little bit further, you have a very impressive board at Innovo and I think your, your chairman is Lord, Lord Philip Hammond and you have some very eminent non-exec directors on the board. How did you choose the people that you have assembled for the board?
Bishoy Azmy
So I must admit that I’m very grateful that this board was assembled this way. We wanted to focus on the key themes that are important for Innovo. We wanted good governance, we wanted to be taken seriously, our chairman who has really you know helped steer the company in the right direction with very strong governance and leadership and I’m very grateful to Lord Hammond for that, then the other three non-execs, Juergen Maier is currently the Chair of GB Energy, so this is their government sovereign fund as you know that focusses on clean energy in the UK, which is part of our interest areas and he’s spent decades working for Siemens which is a company that was in traditional engineering and manufacturing and then used technology to modernise itself and become more of a tech player in the built environment, so we thought lots of learning there. And then Neil Martin, who is currently the CEO of Sir Robert McAlpine and you know this is one of the larger private construction groups in the UK and previously he spent decades at Lendlease, which is again an international business that has successfully done what few others have done and that we are trying to do which is be a construction player as well as a real estate developer and thirdly, Mei Chen, who reflects the technology perceptions and the technology aspirations of Innovo, who has worked in companies such as Google, AI and Alibaba so, we’re very fortunate with this board and they help give the right balance of guidance, inspiration, knowledge about how businesses can grow as well as the interests of Innovo in terms of revenue and specialisations.
Susan Freeman
Well it’s a very powerful board and you are currently in your London office and I, I just wondered why you chose London for your European base?
Bishoy Azmy
Well, part of is subjective. I love this country and I love this city and I think it’s one of the best cities in the world regardless of what we read in the, in some local media. Secondly, I actually think outside the United Kingdom, the UK is the most enlightened centre for technology in the built environment and I think this is an important point, without repeating what I said earlier for Innovo, and in fact we’ve, we’ve invested with tech VCs out of the US and the UK and the, and the tech venture capital companies that we’ve invested in the UK are probably amongst the most active globally outside the United States, so that has validated our choice of London. Also, the UK and London in particular are amongst the world’s most efficient and attractive markets from a real estate perspective, so again despite all the recent negatives, London remains a destination for international capital in real estate and it’s a very respected market in this space and so we’re now starting our journey here in the real estate development and we’re thinking that that is a good thing.
Susan Freeman
Very pleased to hear that. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the UK team and I know it’s, it’s relatively early days for your involvement in, in the UK but could you talk a little bit about particular opportunities that you see here and the sort of developments that Innovo will be looking at?
Bishoy Azmy
So, we have some of our general head office senior leadership based in our London office, such as our CFO and our General Counsel and others, who both do have real estate experience themselves. In fact our CFO previously worked for one of the UK’s largest public listed real estate development companies, but in addition to that we’ve created a focussed team on real estate development and we are fortunate to have managed to attract the ex-global CO of Cushman and Wakefield, his name is John Forrester and he is based in London, although when he was running Cushman and Wakefield he was based in the US, one of the largest global firms in real estate advisory and other real estate services, so he chairs our entire development sort of portfolio and looks at the entire global aspirations of Innovo’s real estate, but we have additionally also appointed earlier this year a Managing Director, Brendon Moss, who is very knowledgeable about the local London environment for development and has worked in companies you know that are from Arab to the Chelsea Barracks and we have several other members now of the team. We have closed in, exchanged if you will, on a real estate opportunity in London that we’re excited about, it’s a residential development, it’s Zone 1, Central London, about 100 units and we’re looking to address a few points in planning, as everyone does, but additionally beyond that we’re looking to see how we can introduce the theme of wellness into this project, not just in terms of nice words or saying that we have a spa or we have you know an infrared sauna, but beyond that, air quality, light penetration into all aspects of the building, circulation, air conditioning, you know certain waves in terms of sound, of course a lot of facilities including you know meditation areas, we’re looking at sustainability issues, we’re looking at transportation connectivity because we think this, the connectivity of your physical space with the rest of the city is very relevant so, we’re busy working on design optimisation on that project and we’re also close to concluding on a commercial deal where we’re acquiring a tired office building in the right location in the City of London and improving that, making it a Grade A office space. Partially this makes commercial sense because there’s a lot of old office buildings that today do not satisfy the top corporate clients in terms of rent from a sustainability perspective but partly it’s not commercial, it’s also our view and our ethos that this is what we want to be known for, for developing projects or upgrading projects into the zone of high sustainability, high wellness, high technology, so there’s not really one in London at the moment.
Susan Freeman
That sounds really, really exciting and we will talk in more detail about sort of wellness and air quality in a minute. Just looking at some of the international projects that you’ve got on round the world, I imagine that planning is a lot easier in those jurisdictions because one of the things we obviously beat ourselves up about here is difficulties with the planning system, difficulties in getting infrastructure projects under way so, are you finding it very different to what you’re used to?
Bishoy Azmy
Yes, so, that’s an understatement. Planning here is particularly difficult, I mean we’re not the only country where planning is difficult so we’re working in Canada as well where I can tell you, I mean, they have you know, I learned a lot from what happens here, so planning there is difficult as well but in many other markets, in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world planning is much more straightforward and I think this cuts a lot of red tape and reduces a lot of inefficiency that ultimately really benefits the end user and benefits the overall economy and government so, when we have clear agreed view that the country needs more houses but yet we’re, it takes five, six, seven years from when someone says “I want to build some houses” to when these houses are available for occupants, I think these five, six, seven years can definitely be reduced.
Susan Freeman
Yes, well let’s hope so. And I believe that as well as London you’ve got offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Toronto, Cairo, Dakar, Luanda and Riyadh and I wondered if you had plans to expand further geographically?
Bishoy Azmy
So, we remind ourselves that Innovo is only four years old and I think we’ve expanded enough and we want to consolidate our presence in our key markets, which is you know definitely the UAE, the UK, Egypt, Canada and KSA and we have many small offices in Africa, I mean you have mentioned Luanda and Dakar which are Angola and Senegal but we have a few other projects happening across other countries and so those are more of satellite offices but our main spheres of operation are the UAE, the UK and Canada, Egypt and KSA and we want to focus on those five markets and we think they are large markets that we respect, but we want to develop local expertise in those markets, expand into the real estate development play there and also, as I said, see how we can be a known go-to entity for technology adoption in those markets and the built environment.
Susan Freeman
And I mean just looking at your internation projects, there is such a broad range, you know, across residential and commercial or educational and healthcare, industrial, can you just give us an idea of the number and extent of the projects you’ve got ongoing and are there any sectors that you, you aren’t working in?
Bishoy Azmy
So, at this point in time we will probably have something like 30 construction projects running at the same time. These would include things like luxury hotels and they would include things like airports, they would include things like government installations and, and government buildings, they would include things like agriculture reclamation projects and they would include things like regeneration and infrastructure work, both shallow infrastructure and deep infrastructure, things like hospitals, stadia and so on. Additionally, we have about 7 or 8 real estate development projects under way, we have about 15,000 people who work directly for Innovo across the various markets we operate in.
Susan Freeman
That’s quite substantial. A lot of moving parts to keep your, your eye on. And I understand that you’re about to, to launch a major, major new project in, in Egypt, is that right? And, and can you tell us a little bit about it?
Bishoy Azmy
I can because this is about to be launched from a sales perspective, but it is a, a done deal, so there are no issues there around sort of confidentiality or announcements, so we have partnered with some very knowledgeable and highly respected partners in Egypt to develop what we think is going to be a destination that’s a mixed use development so, you know, Grade A offices, wellness sort of clinics, we have a Fairmont Hotel there, we have branded residence, we have private member clubs and we have very special retail offerings so, we think that the synergy of those different components will make the project stand out and, as I said, we’re hoping that it becomes a destination and it’s in a part of Cairo called New Cairo, which is self-explanatory, where most of you know the, the new, young crowd lives and works and spend their money and, yeah, we’d love to invite you there in a few, soon to visit.
Susan Freeman
That sounds very exciting. So, let’s talk a little bit about what differentiates Innovo and obviously you mentioned at the beginning the importance of technology and how you are sort of moving things forward. Can we perhaps, I mean talk a little bit about the sort of technology that you’re using in these projects, I mean I’ve read about you know the AI and the reality capture and digital twin technologies and I mean it just, it sounds really impressive, I mean perhaps you know we can talk through one or two projects that you know really are cutting edge as far as you’re concerned.
Bishoy Azmy
Sure, this is of course a very dear topic to my heart and also a very large and complex topic, but let’s try and focus on a few tangible examples. So, one thing that all companies, not only construction and real estate companies can now try to improve on, is how they are using AI to process data. So this has got nothing to do with the actual operations on site or the actual execution of our construction projects, but how we process data, for example, if we are designing a building, typically this could take maybe a year but now you can use certain software and say “I want to design an office in London” and that software can then, using AI, garner all the public information about all the offices not just in London but in Sydney and in Toronto and in Tokyo and in Moscow and in Paris and then come back to you with feedback on what is the best design, how many lifts would you need, how do your orient that building, how many parking spots do you need, what’s the preferred sizes of offices based on millions of people renting offices around the world and so you can get massive information that actually improves your design and also makes it much faster and speedier. This is just one small, little example. The same way with you know whether it’s your finance or your HR or whatever so, many general functions in any business can now be challenged and can improve and can happen faster with better accuracy and to some extent with less human interaction using AI. So this is a big theme, it’s got nothing to do with our specific industry. One important theme for us is what we call the digital twin, so part of our problem as an industry is that our projects are very physical and do not have a replica that is online and all projects are really pilot projects, every project is unique and different from the next project so there is no, you know, standardisation. When we convert the projects into basically an extension of its own digital twin that is virtual, then the project can really be treated in a very different way and this avoids a lot of mistakes, so you mentioned virtual reality capture, so that is to compare the reality on site, what you are building, with your digital twin, with your digital copy of how this building is supposed to look like. This allows us to save money, this allows us to reduce errors, this allows us to monitor project progress in a much more accurate way with somewhat less human engagement, this allows less differences and opinion between stakeholders because everyone has their go-to standard, which is that digital twin, so I think that’s very important and global companies like Autodesk, for example, have led in this space with software like Revit and so on. A third area is labour productivity and human productivity so, construction, you know as a lot of us are prone to quote the McKinsey report on productivity issued a few years ago, is one of the older industries in terms of where we’ve progressed in terms of productivity over the last decade or two and part of the solution for that is to do robotics, so we’re now exploring robots that are able to produce the output of maybe, depending on what they’re doing, six to ten humans and with more accuracy and less material wastage, so robotics is a very big theme and of course safety is a big theme in construction and sadly, construction is not the safest industry globally, so using robotics improves safety, reduces material usage and assuming that now the robot will be controlled by the human, that human’s productivity will be much higher and hence that human can be actually paid more, that work in more intelligently and produce faster output and will reduce the massive need for thousands of humans to work you know as lowly paid labour producing you know very little work. So I’d say these are three important themes. One is general, one relates to how you view your project in its entirety and one relates to human productivity.
Susan Freeman
And are you actually, are you using robots on site?
Bishoy Azmy
We are piloting projects with robots on site so, we currently have two robots on our construction projects in Dubai, actually one in Dubai and one in Abu Dhabi, laying tiles, so doing flooring and we’re interested in expanding this to multiple other sort of series of, of actual work.
Susan Freeman
And how, how are they doing?
Bishoy Azmy
They’re doing pretty well. They’re doing surprisingly well actually.
Susan Freeman
That’s amazing. And I mean are we using those technologies to the same extent in the UK as you’re seeing in other parts of the world?
Bishoy Azmy
I don’t know enough yet but I’d say there’s definitely a lot of awareness that technology is needed here in the UK, I’m not sure as I walk, you know as normal labourers around sites, I feel construction sites here are quite normal, not necessarily very backward but not the most advanced here.
Susan Freeman
Because we hear a lot about problems with you know off site construction and there have been teething problems and you know factories that have opened, have, have closed. Do you use off site construction a lot in um…?
Bishoy Azmy
We do, we do, we use it often in the UAE, which I must admit is a very advanced and open and progressive environment for construction. I, again, am reading here like you and like others about how people have tried what they call ‘modern methods’ of construction and modular off site construction and how a lot of people started with good intent and invested millions of pounds into these schemes but they have generally not, not resulted in long term, sustainable, economic solutions. I don’t know why but I think some editing of these attempts should work ultimately and this is the direction of travel.
Susan Freeman
So, as we discussed you know technology is, is very important to Innovo and do you actually, you invest in tech businesses as well as adopting technology in your, in your projects?
Bishoy Azmy
Yes, so we’ve started investing initially in just startups that we liked and then we felt that this approach, what they call ‘spray and pray’, this approach of randomly or subjectively reacting to some startup or the other that comes our way may not necessarily be the best way that we can find the best technologies that work for us so, like I mentioned earlier on this podcast, we invested in two venture capital set ups that have teams of people, one relies on almost all the construction tech and prop tech opportunities that are happening in the western world and then funnel through a few of them and invest in them and we are strategic LPs in those two VCs and the word ‘strategic’ means we are part of their process of vetting which startups could be relevant to our industry, so this helps everybody, this helps the startup give it early understanding about you know the actual issues that need to be resolved and helps the VC entity itself decide whether this startup is promising or not and whether it really addresses a problem and helps us be aware of what are the potential technology solutions out there and gives us an opportunity to adopt these solutions early. So we have such technology startups that are working with us that we have found and been introduced to through the VC companies that we invest in.
Susan Freeman
It’s a good way of doing it and we, we’ve done it to a small extent at Mishcon, we’ve been running our own lab and working with startup tech companies and helping them refine their models because you can only find out by actually working with the technology to see how it, how it helps you. Innovo has clearly been recognised for all this because you know you’re winning so many awards, I saw you recently won the Digital Transformation of the Year Award at the Construction Technology Awards and there is a whole, a whole list of them so you are obviously ahead of the game on this.
Bishoy Azmy
I don’t know, I will just say that we have this awareness, whether we’re actually ahead of the game or not, I mean we, we try our best and we have, you know, an amazing team, tens of people working in our own business, all they focus on is innovation and technology adoption, some you know very mundane things, you know like moving your ERP systems from on premise to Cloud but them some really innovative things like how we can change we are working on site in multiple ways.
Susan Freeman
That is, is definitely the direction of travel isn’t it and sustainability as you have mentioned, is of also, you know, important to what you’re doing and I see you’ve recently won The Sustainable Contractor of the Year Award at the Big Project Middle East Awards. How important do you think decarbonisation is to our sector?
Bishoy Azmy
I think sadly that it’s not given the importance it deserves because I think there are some really quick, easy wins so I mean we all read about how people are frustrated from people using private jets and the kind of carbon footprint that these leave. Fair, granted. But construction and extraction of building material and operation of real estate assets is a much larger culprit in this country and globally and if government and private sector engage together to see how we can reduce that, in logical ways, we do not want to become you know prohibitively expensive and get one generation to pay for you know whatever will benefit future generations in an excessive way, but there are some few easy wins that can happen and our industry is definitely prime for slight edits that would really help on the whole carbon decarbonisation story.
Susan Freeman
So, what would be the top of your, your list of you know easy wins that we should be moving ahead with?
Bishoy Azmy
So, three things. More efficient design, so I think most real estate assets have 20%, 30% over design in them which means more materials. Number two, I would think of much more local sourcing by regulation than you know transporting things all over the world and number three, I talk about a much more efficient system of air conditioning, whether it’s heating or cooling and that would also include insulation. So we have a lot of real estate assets in this wonderful city that are tired and hence, you know, the actual efficiency, so if you put in let’s say one unit of thermal energy, the actual efficiency may be half of that and that can be improved massively by a few changes. So, I’d say those three points.
Susan Freeman
And there isn’t really any great incentive in the UK to repurpose existing buildings and you know it seems to be easier to just, you know, to start again.
Bishoy Azmy
So, I mean, most of the buildings that will be around for our lifetime and our, you know, children’s lifetime are buildings that have already been built via old standards, so the stock of buildings is very difficult to replace entirely even if you build massively, we have buildings from you know hundreds of years so, a serious move towards addressing energy efficiency in existing buildings, I think is almost overdue.
Susan Freeman
We talk a lot about, you know, repurposing commercial buildings but we have a lot of old, tired residential stock in this country that people haven’t really sort of focussed on.
Bishoy Azmy
And I think we should be practical and not expect that people will do this of their own volition and spend you know hundreds or millions of pounds working on this. I think the idea is to link it to reduced energy bills so, how you reduce your energy bill as long as you are not thinking in the immediate short term, if you even have a medium term view, let’s say five years, so you look at how the energy efficiency will help save you money and hence you can spend that capital cost or the government or some private sector initiative or something can help you spend that current, immediate capital cost but then that can be amortised in a way that’s attractive on the medium term so that it’s ultimately win-win.
Susan Freeman
We started looking at that but you know there is a, there is a long way; there’s a long way to go. And I just wondered, I mean obviously in the, in America, President Trump appears to be abandoning the climate change agenda, how far do you think that will affect the sustainability agenda internationally?
Bishoy Azmy
Now we’re into politics.
Susan Freeman
It can be practical, it doesn’t have to be, but it just does seem to be affecting the way people are looking at things.
Bishoy Azmy
I think it is but I think ultimately the Trump presidency is a four year stint and this is a much larger and longer discussion so, whatever happens over the next three years, I think the climate agenda will remain.
Susan Freeman
Good. I think so too. Now you are running a very substantial international team and I just wondered what are the, you know, challenges of running a business that is, you know, truly international and working in, you know, so many parts of the world?
Bishoy Azmy
Well, part of it is just dealing with the different set of laws, set of regulations, set of expectations, so what might be acceptable in some place may not be and do we want to hold ourselves so as a UK business, we hold ourselves to UK governance for example, there are certain regulations that we have to comply with globally as a UK headquartered business but then there are a lot of things that are in line with local regulations, local customs, so this is always a point that is top of our mind. I think one of the good things of having multiple areas of operation is that sometimes certain markets are not doing so well while others are doing well, so you balance things and you do resource levelling and you also offer opportunities to your team members if they want to, to try different markets, different experiences by moving from one country to the other and there are learnings that we can bring from one country to another also that benefit us in all directions, not just in one direction. So, it is challenging but it’s also enjoyable and exciting and, and I hope bodes well for the future.
Susan Freeman
And are you, are you expanding? Are you looking? Are you hiring people?
Bishoy Azmy
We are hiring people but as I said, our focus is on our five key markets.
Susan Freeman
As you said, Innovo is a relatively new company with an awful lot going on, I mean are things going according to expectations since you started the company in 2020?
Bishoy Azmy
Yes. I’m very grateful and there’s no dull moments so there’s always challenges and there are few hiccups, but largely, yes, I’m very excited about this, the one specific opportunity that is now real with us in London and that allows us to, you know, be more present in the local business environment here rather than just be a spectator or someone people are just happy to hear talk from, so we’re actually going to start working and potentially our second project, as I said, in the commercial space later this year, so they would showcase everything we’re speaking about in the actual, you know, real world.
Susan Freeman
And just getting back to the project you mentioned that is under way and you were talking about wellness and air quality and that’s something I’d like to talk to you a little bit about because it seems to me that during Covid and you know the immediate aftermath to Covid, we were all fixated about air quality for obvious reasons and it seems to have sort of dropped down the list a little bit in terms of what occupiers and buyers are looking for and people seem to be discounting the fact that air quality is just so important in terms of you know health, productivity and everything else so, I just wondered what your thinking was on that?
Bishoy Azmy
So we think this is one important aspect of wellness, along with many others. So, we have wellness consultants working for us internally and externally and in fact some of our actual offices, we have adopted small, little tweaks to how the offices can feel like more wellness and we look at air quality in our offices currently and this is something we will take seriously in our development projects. We look at temperature control, we look at lighting so, some of our offices and some of the buildings where spaces are not fully lit naturally, we have artificial light that actually is specially designed to mimic natural light and it’s a very small hack if you will, but it really works, makes a huge difference. I’ve seen this in our offices now for the last couple of years, we have lots of plants and then choosing those plants to work in that specific area and what they create in terms of scenery but also in terms of oxygen content and so on, so you play with all these small details and makes a huge difference.
Susan Freeman
Well, I look forward to seeing that…
Bishoy Azmy
Yes. We must take you for a tour.
Susan Freeman
So, I mean one of the things we’ve, we’ve talked about in the past, you have an MBA from London Business School, you studied at, at Harvard, do you think that the real estate sector could be working better with, with the business schools to promote learning and to just promote the image of our sector?
Bishoy Azmy
I do and I mean since you mentioned London Business School so, we have collaborated with London Business School in the past and are working on more such collaborations now around the theme of sustainability in the built environment and I mean, I think this is a topic that sort of transcends business, engineering and, you know, human sort of, you know, modus and yes, we’ve seen interest in it and we’ve seen the possible logic for why a business school would be focussed on something like this and why they would want to teach this to their students, why their professors would want to research it and yes, we are active, work in this space with London Business School and others.
Susan Freeman
I’m pleased to hear that because as you know, I was also at, at London Business School doing the Sloan Programme and the thing that really surprised me was that there were so few people from the real estate sector and there was nothing on the curriculum about real estate and it seems to be so, such an important part of running a business.
Bishoy Azmy
It is and, you know, in discussions with the Dean of London Business School, Dean Sergei Guriev, last week, this was one of the topics we broached and I am happy to report that it’s something that the School is taking seriously.
Susan Freeman
Okay, that’s really, really good news. And I’m sure you’ve, you’ve learned an awful lot as a leader since you set up Innovo and I just wondered whether there were any sort of particular learnings, anything that is particularly important?
Bishoy Azmy
I mean, I think I’m very fortunate and whatever I’ve learned over the last four years is to try and be more humble and more empathetic really. It’s very easy sitting at the top and saying this is where I want us to go but then execution is not that straightforward so, just marking instructions or even articulating my dreams or our vision or our strategy is insufficient, it needs to be coupled with a huge dollop of humility and understanding of how things are happening on the ground and that then allows everyone else to work more comfortably. I’ve just read a book that’s not very recent, but someone sent me, maybe they wanted me to learn something, called ‘Extreme Ownership’ that talks about how successful leaders take ownership more of failures than successes and how taking ownership of failures allows the team to work in a more positive, congenial environment where they’re not worried that they would be blamed or, you know, they would be scapegoated for any failures.
Susan Freeman
That’s interesting, so you treat it is a, a learning experience. So, just looking ahead over the next few years, what do you reckon, in our industry what, what will separate the companies that lead in innovation from the ones that are more complacent and, and fall behind?
Bishoy Azmy
Well I think governments and clients are all now recognising the need for a different offering in the built environment and so those people who can offer this different offering, even if it’s only 10%, 20% better than the status quo, I think we’ll be in a better poll position to work and win contracts and win development concessions and sell units to millennials and sell rent spaces to corporates who have some kind of, you know, social and environmental consciousness so, I think there is a strong thirst from the demand side and it’s the responsibility is on us now to improve a little bit the supply side and it’s almost, you know, a sad but positive reality that because there is very little innovation and very little change from what has been on offer for years and decades, even a slight improvement will be appreciated and will, will differentiate one business and one product from the other. So, I think there’s a huge opportunity for all of us and I think it’s, it will move us all, as an industry, as individuals, as businesses, as products that will remain for decades in the right direction.
Susan Freeman
I agree, Bishoy, that is great and that is probably a really good point to end so, thank you so much.
Bishoy Azmy
Thank you, Susan.
Susan Freeman
Thank you so much Bishoy for taking the time to talk to us about your vision for Innovo, your ground-breaking projects and your plans to bring some Dubai ambition to the UK. We look forward to following your progress.
So that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation. Please join us for the next PropertyShe podcast interview coming very soon.
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