Brian Bickell would not have been chief executive of Shaftesbury if he had listened to his own advice.
“I had spent 25 years saying to everybody, ‘Chartered accountants should never run property companies.’ But when the facts change, I change my mind,” he says.
Bickell, a chartered accountant by training, has been at Shaftesbury since its start 32 years ago. He spent a quarter century as the company’s finance director before taking over as chief executive, seeing the company grow from a £10m private property vehicle in 1986 to a £2.9bn listed West End landlord.
Having been a part of Shaftesbury since the beginning, Bickell says he knew the company well enough by 2011 to vie for the role of chief executive, fighting off “stiff competition to get the job – mostly from all the surveyors who I said should be running Shaftesbury”.
But having “ultimate responsibility” for a company that owns 14.9 acres of central London kept waking Bickell up at 4am. That responsibility, however, was an opportunity to become a role model in the industry.
Pride in property
Bickell is one of property’s most prominent gay executives. Although he says people around him knew he was “sort of” out, becoming chief executive was a turning point.
“I thought, now is an opportunity to be a bit of a role model,” Bickell says. “It’s important to give something back and lead by example and create an environment where people can be themselves at work.”
He joined the board of Freehold, a property LGBT networking group, which launched in September 2011. That group, now with more than 1,000 members, has spawned other LGBT networking groups, ranging from Offsite, for those in construction, to Planning Out for planners.
Although attitudes to diversity and sexuality have improved in the past 30 years, Bickell says property still struggles with its “rugby club mentality”. It is an industry he loves and takes pride in, but there are still times he and other LGBT property professionals feel like they do not quite belong.
He says: “We have people joining Freehold saying, ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t email me at work. I couldn’t let anybody at work know I’m gay’, even in this day and age.”
Just seven years ago when Freehold started, some industry bodies and firms had little interest in working with it. Bickell says: “A number of large organisations said, ‘Well, we don’t have any gay people here’, despite the fact they may have more than 500 staff, or their attitude was, ‘They’re perfectly happy, whoever they are.’”
That attitude, he says, makes people lead a double life where they do not talk about their partners or about what they do over the weekend, which creates a toxic, uncomfortable work environment.
But he encourages property professionals to come out. “Once you’ve told somebody that you’re gay, it’s not your problem anymore,” he says. “Not everybody in this life is going to love you and want you to be their best friend.
“But if they’re not happy with the way you are, well, that’s their problem. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. That’s just the way life is.”
Addressing diversity issues
From a business perspective, Bickell says that not addressing diversity issues, whether surrounding gender, sexuality, race or economic background, means the industry risks falling behind despite the growing range of career opportunities it offers the next generation.
“They’re all strands of the same problem,” he says. “We want those sort of young creatives to think seriously about this industry because we’ve got our challenges with the way technology is changing our buildings and how we use them.”
“And they don’t want to work in a fuddy-duddy, backward-looking industry that is basically living in the past. It’s not going to work.”
For more on Bickell’s career and his thoughts on subjects ranging from Brexit to tech and Love Island, listen to the latest Tomorrow’s Leaders podcast.
Brian Bickell on…
Shaftesbury floating days before Black Monday, 1987
“Within six weeks of floating at £1.80 we managed to turn that into £1 or less. So it wasn’t the most spectacular start.”
Not Tweeting
“I think I’m turning into a grumpy old man. If I let rip on Twitter about some of the things that go on… I won’t be quite as bad as a certain president of a certain large country, but it’s something you get drawn into, so it’s best avoided.”
Love Island
“Twenty thousand years of human advancement have ended up with something called Love Island. There’s no hope for this society, really.”
His taste in music
“Any sort of trashy mainstream music. If something awful goes wrong and I end up in a home and I’m not sure where I am, I’d just be happy if you play me endless ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s hits. It takes you back to where you were in those days.”
Retirement
“I’ll be around for a few more years. I’m not about to throw in the towel, but obviously as a business we’ve got to make sure we’ve got plans for succession within the team.”
To send feedback, e-mail karl.tomusk@egi.co.uk or tweet @ktomusk or @estatesgazette
