Two years ago, Jack Sibley was fresh out of university. Now the 23-year-old is running global tech strategy for TH Real Estate. He tells EG’s Emily Wright how he went from intern to tech lead and why his story should be an inspirational sign of things to come.
Jack Sibley didn’t really mean to become head of tech innovation and strategy for one of the biggest real estate investors in the world. In fact, just two years ago he had come to the conclusion that a career in real estate was probably not for him; a decision that would not have resulted in much of an upheaval or mindset change given that, at the time, he had only just left university.
So far, so standard. Like thousands of young graduates in their early 20s, Sibley was not sure what he wanted out of his working life – particularly in a world where innovation, entrepreneurship and the lure of the start-up have never been more attractive.
Two years ago, Jack Sibley was fresh out of university. Now the 23-year-old is running global tech strategy for TH Real Estate. He tells EG’s Emily Wright how he went from intern to tech lead and why his story should be an inspirational sign of things to come.
Jack Sibley didn’t really mean to become head of tech innovation and strategy for one of the biggest real estate investors in the world. In fact, just two years ago he had come to the conclusion that a career in real estate was probably not for him; a decision that would not have resulted in much of an upheaval or mindset change given that, at the time, he had only just left university.
So far, so standard. Like thousands of young graduates in their early 20s, Sibley was not sure what he wanted out of his working life – particularly in a world where innovation, entrepreneurship and the lure of the start-up have never been more attractive.
Was a graduate job in a big corporate machine really what he wanted? Was the real estate industry fast-moving enough to keep him and his peers challenged and inspired? Would he be heard rather than dismissed as another fresh face with bold ideas but no experience to back them up?
It turns out that, for Sibley, the answer to all of those questions ended up being a resounding “yes”. The right internship with the right company has seen a 21-year-old Land Economy graduate who was not convinced that property was even for him become TH Real Estate’s 23-year-old head of global tech.
It is a story that he hopes will inspire young people who want to help transform the property sector by working within it rather than disrupting it from the outside, but are not sure how to get their foot in the door.
Here, he reveals how he worked his way up through the ranks of a major real estate company from intern to tech strategist in two years and explains why now has never been a better time for young people to make their mark and get ahead in property.
Technological disruption
Sibley is refreshingly open to recounting his initial concerns about working in real estate and, crucially, how they were dispelled. “I had an idea of the space as being this conventional, relatively slow-moving place that was just not a particularly dynamic industry,” he says.
“My main interest at university was doing stuff on the side for student think tanks. I did a big paper there which focused on tech and how disruptive ideas can disrupt industries. At the time, I didn’t see the confluence of how real estate was changing in reaction to tech and how it was actually one of the more interesting industries to be looking at.
“The interesting industries are not the ones which have already seen the big bleed in of technological disruption. They are not the ones that are still the status quo. They are the ones that are starting on that curve of experiencing technological change.”
Sibley adds that, crucial to his role, he not only thinks in terms of tech, but also the role of that tech within the business. “There is not a huge precedent in real estate for tech,” he says. “So when my internship with TH’s R&D team was made permanent, I spent that year doing work on the side of that role trying to get an understanding of where the business, the wider industry and our peers were in terms of an approach to technological innovation.
“I realised that this wasn’t just about tech and it wasn’t just about innovating. It was about a combination of the exponential power of tech paired with the need for a new business model. I communicated this and it eventually led me to transitioning over to another full time role in February. Now I focus on how we, as a business, bring tech innovation in line with our wider investment goals.”
Decisions based on good ideas
He makes it sound easy. But for a 23-year-old with limited experience, what Sibley has achieved – and what TH Real Estate has been prepared to invest in him – is pretty much unheard of. There is no denying that Sibley is impressive. But he is the first to admit that there were other factors at play that led to him landing his current role.
“It was good fortune that my skills and interests aligned with the particular moment the real estate industry is in. If I had started work five years ago or in five years’ time, this probably wouldn’t have happened,” he says.
Sibley adds that it also came down to the type of business he found himself working for. “TH has demonstrated it can make decisions based on good ideas rather than the number of years’ experience the person coming up with those ideas has had,” he says.
“You have to be somewhere forward-thinking enough to empower someone, like me, who hasn’t had 10 years in the business. But then this is a relatively flat playing field in that there aren’t many people out there who actually have experience doing the job I am doing.
“It is not like there is a huge pool of people who have done this at lots of other companies, or within our company. There are people with 20 years’ experience here with transferable skills, yes. But from an agility perspective, bringing on someone like me allows us to start today rather than going out and trying to make the case for a whole new team to come in.”
Encouragement, then, for those starting out in their careers looking to join a real estate company taking on a similar role. And encouraging, too, for the property sector itself which has, for many years, been battling an image problem and losing talent to start-ups and alternative industries; tech included.
Sibley’s role is evidence that there are opportunities for young people with fresh ideas in a sector known for being stuck in its ways. “I am meeting more people who are doing a similar role to me in other companies. These all tend to be younger people. It is still unusual to have a dedicated role but young, more entrepreneurial people who might have gone off and set up on their own do have opportunities in these bigger companies.”
What’s next?
As for what’s next for Sibley, he is keen to grow his remit and knows he can’t do that alone. “We will most likely end up with a wider team beyond one 23-year-old,” he says. “There are already people who have come into the business with my support and encouragement. One is a data scientist based on the West Coast, someone who set up a data analytics platform.
“There are actually very few people who have his skill set and that’s an area the business needs to grow. It comes down to more than having someone like me saying ‘this is what we need to be doing in data and this is what our peers are doing’, it’s more about how do we actually put that into practice to generate value for our clients and the wider business and that’s where it’s about bringing in other people who have more experience.”
At the coalface
Sibley talks with authority and confidence. But this is still a situation where someone two years out of university is making suggestions that will impact a 500-strong company across 24 offices. Does he feel the pressure?
“I am conscious of it,” he says. “The way I see it in terms of how I act internally is to be a facilitative resource for other teams. So my role is not about imposing any dictats. It is more about the fact we have a big pool of people with the desire to be more innovative but who don’t necessarily have the tools or the resource or the time to really actually drive that in practice.
“If you’re working on a real estate project you are focused on that. Driving it, delivering it and pushing it forward. Coming up and thinking at a broader level isn’t always easy. Which is what I do.”
In terms of what else he does on a day-to-day basis, Sibley is quick to confirm he is not just an ideas man. Working at the coalface he has been directly involved with TH Real Estate’s’ 600,000 sq ft Devonshire Sqaure scheme.
He also refers to TH Real Estate’s €1bn Edge Technologies deal announced in April. “We backed their platform across Europe which is a mix of co-working, health and wellbeing and smart buildings. So building off that, refining what it actually means as a commercial product and then expanding that across Berlin.
“So that’s looking at what smart buildings and sensors mean in practice for real estate. And what their role is in driving value. It is a partnership with one of the leading players in that space and one that isn’t just talking about things but is actually doing things. We see it as a great case study.”
Given TH Real Estate’s size and ambition, Sibley’s tech remit is a global one. How does he feel about rolling out a strategy on this scale when countries are at varying different stages of digital development?
“I think the themes are the same and that’s the main thing,” he says. “We can look at countries and cities that are further ahead than us and try to understand from them what’s going on there and then use it to inform our future.
“There are broadly four or five big themes we look at; new concepts like WeWork, digital asset management, data, technologies like 5G and driverless cars (things that aren’t a new real estate concept but worth knowing about) and working out how it is relevant to us in real estate and investment decisions.”
The last one, he says, is proptech. This is the first time the word – often used quickly and freely as a useful catchall for all things tech-related in property – has been mentioned. “There is a bit of a proptech blur in my opinion, but we do keep an eye on these companies.”
‘A tapestry of grey’
“There is a lot of noise out there so you need to filter heavily and make sure you are looking at companies that are right for you, it is useful for catching any potential rising partners we could work with. This has been historically done across most of the industry relatively haphazardly so it is about building a strategy and a network around that.
“Tech companies do sometimes underestimate how hard it is to find a one-size-fits-all solution. Something might work for a managing agent that doesn’t work for a landlord. And because there are so many stakeholders involved in every real estate transaction, there is a misconception that one thing can neatly work for everyone and every end user. There needs to be more flexibility built into these ideas and tools in my experience.
“As for the property sector, I think it sometimes sees things in a very binary fashion. Either ‘AI will save the world’ or ‘I have never seen a convincing analysis of AI to prove it is useful’.
“In fact, the world is much more a tapestry of grey and I will help us to take a more pragmatic approach with our model here. So we won’t be saying ‘yes, let’s spend £2m on AI’ but equally we won’t say ‘we won’t be using that at all’. It’s about working out where AI is at this point in time and how we can drive that forwards if we can and how we can extract value from it practically.”
As to whether he thinks roles such as his will continue to grow in prevalence, Sibley’s parting message is that this is the least of it. “We are at the start of this innings,” he says. “And by ‘us’ I mean real estate. Ahead of the transformation that is going to take place over the next five years, this is the first push to make sure we are up to scratch.”
And his message to any tech companies out there? Get in touch. “Part of the value of my role is to create a streamlined entry point into what is a very big company and I hope that people recognise that. Interaction between tech and property companies has not always been great and often you only meet the first person you see on the website or get introduced to at an event and you then spend weeks being bounced around different people wasting your time.
“It has not always been a very efficient way to approach things. I hope I can be a more efficient way of coming to the ‘yes, no, maybe not now’ answer that people are so desperately looking for.”
To send feedback, e-mail emily.wright@egi.co.uk or tweet @EmilyW_9 or @estatesgazette
