Catherine Spitzer took over as managing director of Bidwells in July last year, having been in the role of chief operating officer since 2014.
With just four years of experience in the real estate world, she could still be labelled a newcomer to the sector. However, she has the industry pretty sussed.
And she has come to it at a time when her background in IT, tech, consultancy and some good old-fashioned confidence couldn’t be more valuable.
After getting a degree in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, Spitzer first tried her hand at corporate law, specialising in a new area called IT.
That early experience saw her help the likes of Amazon and eBay set up in the UK. Tech solutions, which at the time, many saw no future for.
“One day one of the partners came in and said: ‘You’ll never guess who we’ve got today. We’ve got this new company and they want people to bid on second-hand things,’” says Spitzer with a smile. He never thought it would work. The new company was, of course, eBay. In 2017 it had annual revenues of $9.7bn.
It was a phenomenal learning experience for Spitzer and a time of high energy, entrepreneurialism and a lack of fear.
“Back then there was real belief,” says Spitzer, speaking about people’s attempts to launch new products and businesses.
“I think it is a little bit more stunted now. I think we are a bit more cautious, which is a shame because there was no stigma attached to failing in those days.
“In fact, it was almost that you weren’t a real entrepreneur until you had failed.
“People of that generation will talk proudly about their failures because, actually, that’s a time when you learn so much.”
Real estate’s unwillingness to fail once in a while is a much-discussed topic at the moment and is the crux of the personality clash that still sometimes occurs in the tech/property world.
Spitzer gets it though. She says for those working in the professional services arena it is hard to admit that failure is a good thing as people are paying you to be right. The growth of tech is changing that.
“But,” says Spitzer, “you’re trying to tell people who have been trying to get it perfect for their whole career that it’s OK to try something different and that if it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work and that you’ll learn a lot, whether it ends up right or not.”
Speaking to Spitzer and finding out a little bit more about what makes her tick, it seems that trying something different is certainly high up on the list.
After a stint in law, Spitzer joined IPC, where she became responsible for providing strategic direction and leadership across EMEA and APAC with a focus on growth, operational efficiency, transformation and risk management and functional responsible for delivery of HR, legal and corporate services.
It was a business she committed to for more than a decade. A business that she helped grow. A business she ultimately sacrificed herself for to make sure that the people she had managed, mentored and helped grow could survive.
“I was there for 10 years and it was a case of the third private equity owners looking for more and more savings.
“I said: ‘Take me because if you don’t take me everyone has to shuffle downwards and if you do take me they can all step up. You don’t need to replace me, my teams can do it without me now,’” she says.
“It just felt like the right thing to do. It was either kick the sandcastle down that I had built for the past 10 years – and it was beautiful – or let someone else play with it. It felt the right thing to do to let someone else play with it.”
It also helps that Spitzer has an unthreatening, brag-less confidence in herself.
She knew that if she left, she would find somewhere else. That she had the skills to make even more of herself somewhere else.
But not until she did the thing that she says is “probably one of the best things I’ve done for myself in adult life”. Spitzer stopped. She unapologetically stopped. Downed tools and took a year off work.
With three children, Spitzer couldn’t quite run off and travel around the world but she did take some time for herself. She travelled, retrained as a business coach and did a lot of networking.
I don’t see myself as female in the context of work, I see myself as a person with talent and ability to do things. For me it’s about giving people confidence to do what they want and not to see barriers. I’ve never seen barriers. I’ve always worked in very male-dominated areas and never seen it as an issue
She was only half-heartedly looking for a job when the Bidwells opening for a chief operating officer came up. And it wasn’t really the job she was looking for. But as one not afraid to fail and one not unconfident in her own abilities, Spitzer saw opportunity and somewhere where she could add value.
But the biggest draw, says Spitzer sincerely, was the people.
“There’s a stat that I remember seeing that says something like 80% of the world’s population are either not engaged or only averagely engaged at work.
“So 80% of people basically just turn up and churn. I don’t reckon that is true at Bidwells,”says Spitzer. “People love what they do.”
Bidwells may have happy people working for it, especially in its new agile workspace, but what about attracting new talent to the industry?
Does Spitzer, as a senior-level women and a senior-level executive from outside the industry, feel any responsibility to bang the diversity drum loud and proud?
She says Bidwells, like many property firms, is working with schools to speak to young people – male and female – about a career in property and potential roles real estate offers.
It is also conducting a project looking at how they can get people later in life to qualify for a job in property as a second career. But does she feel like she needs to be a role model?
“It’s funny,” says Spitzer, “I guess I never really thought about it. I don’t see myself as female in the context of work, I see myself as a person with talent and ability to do things.
“But I did meet someone a while ago who had just started at Bidwells and asked them why they joined.
“They said because we had a female COO. I was genuinely taken aback by that. But from then on I did become a little bit more aware of that.
“For me it’s about giving people confidence to do what they want and not to see barriers. I’ve never seen barriers. I’ve always worked in very male-dominated areas and never seen it as an issue.”
Barriers, mountain peaks. They are all surmountable in Spitzer’s world view. She’s climbed numerous mountains herself, has trekked to the North Pole, dogsled across the Arctic and had lunch with a warlord down the Khyber Pass.
Can’t is not a word that computes with Spitzer, nor will she let it with her girls, all three of whom have summited Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, a 4,000m peak. They were 8,10 and 12 years old. It’s a powerful image for any of us who might be wondering if we can achieve.
So are you still wondering why you need to put Spitzer in your little black book (or smartphone)? I’ll let her deliver the killer punchline.
“I want people to be happy,” says Spitzer. “I genuinely want people to love coming to work and to get a lot of fulfilment from it because life’s short, frankly, and that [happiness] should be a basic human requirement for me.”
Listen to the interview with Spitzer in full
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