He has been called the best adviser in central London bar none and over his almost four decades in the business has been involved in some of the most high-profile projects in the capital, but for Digby Flower – who retires as chair of Cushman & Wakefield’s UK business at the end of this year – his greatest successes haven’t been about the properties, they have been about the people.
Flower began his career at Baker Harris Saunders in 1985 and names Simon Harris as his first great mentor. Harris, says Flower, knew exactly what made buildings tick and instilled that knowledge and desire to understand in him. That viewpoint, he adds, brought him into contact with Mike Hussey and Stuart Lipton – both of whom would become major clients of Flower.
After a decade at Baker Harris Saunders, Flower moved to Hillier Parker in 1995, where he was involved in the formation of CB Hillier Parker and the merger with Richard Ellis to form CBRE. He joined Cushman & Wakefield in 2012 and was heavily involved in its merger with DTZ in 2015.
Flower’s track record is enviable. He has been involved in many of central London’s major placemaking projects, including the Blue Fin Building and Bankside 2 and 3, New Street Square and Cardinal Place, and in the evolution of the new generation of tower buildings, including 20 Fenchurch Street, 22 Bishopsgate and the Scalpel.
He has also provided strategic advice to major occupiers including PwC, Mayer Brown, Ashurst, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, State Street and Standard Chartered, all throughout a period of transformation in the capital.
Trust your gut
But when Flower looks back, the advice he says he wants to pass on to the next generation of potential “best advisers, bar none” is to think and trust your gut.
“I spent a lot of time thinking about the market and the future,” says Flower, when asked about the secret to his success. That, he says, and understanding what the future of the market looks like right now, could not be more important.
Flower believes the market is in denial about the future of the office. A word that, despite him spending 37 years working on, he wants to see banned. For Flower, the future is about the workplace, “with the emphasis on place”.
“If we think more about the place and what a place needs, rather than an office, then they will be successful,” says Flower. He cites New Street Square as an example. By understanding what the place needed – it needed to be a place for professionals – Flower says they were able to make it a success, attracting Deloitte, Taylor Wessing and Charles Russell Speechlys.
For Flower, this understanding is all about helping people. Giving people the best advice to help them deliver new developments across the capital and helping those around you be the best they can in their careers.
Hard but fair
While Flower admits that he can be a tough person to work for – “I’m hard but fair, I’ll give you my time but don’t ask twice, and make sure you produce your best work” – he clearly looks back on his mentoring as one of his greatest successes.
Alongside mentoring on the day job, through the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors, of which he has served as a master, Flower created a bursary scheme enabling young people from backgrounds that normally would not be exposed to the real estate industry to forge careers in the sector.
And it is this theme that he says he will be continuing in his retirement.
Expect to see more charitable work from Flower through his trustee work at the Medical College of Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital Trust and WildFish, where he is preparing to take on the water companies in a bid to protect wild fish and their waters, and through the Fishing for Schools programme, which teaches children from difficult backgrounds how to fish (one of Flower’s passions), but not before designing and building their own fishing rods, surreptitiously teaching them English and maths, and, of course, to think.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews
