Generally you need to be quiet around the Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I am your host, Ryan Willard, and this week I am speaking with Mark Bullivant. So in this episode, Mark, who is a principal at say OTA architecture, which is based in Cape Town, he will be discussing with us a few interesting topics, including the power of imagery in winning international work and those dream projects. We talked about building a portfolio of extraordinary international work whilst being based in a youthful domestic economy, such as in Cape Town in South Africa. And we talk about what it actually takes to be on a leadership team of a practice of the scale and caliber of say iota. So Mark himself completed a Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Cape Town in 2006. He immediately joined Sahota, cutting his teeth overseeing the construction of a number of local projects. Mark quickly established himself within the practice with his all round ability, work ethic and leadership skills, and started climbing the ranks culminating in promotion to Senior Associate in 2015, and then the principal of Sai iota. He is creative, versatile and ambitious, and marks interest in the profession and the realisation of unique design solutions are apparent in his projects, both locally and abroad. So Mark is the regional head if you like of the or has the regional knowledge base, it's the OTA in the US. So really interesting conversation here, which covers a lot of territory. So sit back, relax and enjoy Mark Bullivant. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures, flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you please follow the link in the information. Mark. Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
Very good. Thanks. Thanks for having me. How are you?
Excellent. I'm very well, thank you. I'm very good. Indeed. Now, absolute pleasure to be speaking with you. You're one of the directors at, say iota. You guys have got, I mean, just in your private residential portfolio of work just up absolutely extraordinary homes right across South Africa and into other parts of the continent as well. And actually, you've got very diverse, very diverse portfolio of work. And one of the one of the premier practices in the in in South Africa, you've been there for 116 years or so. Correct? Yes. 16 years. Great. And you've, you've been a director, how long have you been a director for?
Since 2015? I became one.
Okay, so best part of a best part of a decade? Yeah. Nearly as I understand that co2 has really been the kind of the main practice. You've you've been in pretty much since you left university.
Correct. I am, during during studies, work for a small practice here in Cape Town. And then my final exam, Stefan saw my work and I was offered a job and so straight out of school joined and I've never left.
Amazing for you, how would you describe Scioto as it's kind of, you know, the its specific offering in the marketplace and what makes you guys unique practice.
I think that we we create sort of environments and buildings for that, that people can really live in, I think we take a lot. We place a lot of emphasis certainly on the kind of where we come from, and what what Cape Town I guess has to offer in terms of lifestyle and the way to engage with the with the surroundings. And so we kind of try to apply that analogy to all of our buildings, whether it's a residence or any other kind, but that that's that's probably what I think is the root of of what we were trying to create.
And in your time, since over the last 16 years, how have you seen the practice, grow and shift and change? And obviously you've you've weathered a few difficult economic storms, you know, COVID been, you know, the kind of most recent one. Yeah, have you seen the practice grow since your time there?
So I might start at the beginning because that's my take is that the long explanation and rather beginning I mean, sort of proceeding myself so since Stephen Anthony, founder of the biz This, I think it was in around 1985, we 37 years old this year. So I should be able to do that math, maybe that's 86. And was primarily doing work here in Cape Town, largely in the residential space. I think in the mid 90s, Greg true and and Philip homestyle joined the practice and continue to kind of along that vein, and we started doing some more work throughout South Africa. Lots of bits and pieces, but particularly in primary primarily in the in the residential areas. Probably early 2000s, I think, started getting some work more up continents, which I think was partly a strategic move to kind of broaden, broaden horizons. And we're and and then kind of when I joined in 2007, I think we had just done a first project through one of the Senegalese clients in on Lake Geneva, which was kind of one of our first international projects. And so really, when I joined, we were doing a lot of residential work, a lot of full service work here in Cape Town, and fairly prolific in that arena. And kind of around the 2010 mark, we really started to see the opportunities for sort of international work. And it's quite hard to explain exactly how it happened. Obviously, part of it was strategic and hopeful. But in the way it happened was certainly not it was kind of far exceeded anything, anything that was planned at the time. And that period was kind of a combination of which seems there is to say in 2023. But you know, it was the emergence of online blogs. And I think the shift from hardcopy media into a more sort of online field that sort of coincided with the great sort of economic downturns and I think what really happened was, there was I think it was an Australian online publication called architecture Hunter, featured one of our white features one of our projects, and off the back of that we got some traction, people discovered us, we had probably 15 years of very high quality work, beautifully photographed, that the world had never seen. And it kind of got dumped on the internet. And then from there, the emergence of things like Pinterest, and some of these more sort of online media tools really kind of pushed us in a way that we kind of could never have really imagined. So at this point, in my personal career as probably kind of three or four years in, had been working on projects here. I then had the opportunity to work on some of our first projects in Dubai, which was a great experience for me. And, and, and so there was Dubai and then around 2012, we got our first call from Miami for Project day, which was kind of a watershed moment in my career is that was obviously it opened us as a practice up to a huge market and ours kind of Right Place Right Time, and was able to kind of, you know, run with that to some extent, of course, I was very well supported by Phillip himself, his my, my mentor, and obviously my fellow principal. And that that opportunity really kind of started my path towards becoming a principal and shareholder in the in the business. Concurrently, Felipe was sort of in a similar position with some of our European work and And so today, you know, we were sitting having, I think, the last count ad on cities, or sorry, 80 odd countries, I think is over 150 cities. And, and through that, that, that kind of set us on a completely different path, changed our business model, open new horizons, and we've really been extremely fortunate to, you know, to be able to participate in all of these amazing projects that are kind of all over the world. So it's been a, it's been a wild ride.
That's amazing.
How old is the practice? 37 years old?
That is 70 years old. And this strategic and hopeful kind of plan you had in 2010? What what did that involve? Did it was it kind of like, you know, we're going to conquer the world kind of plan, or
no, no, not not at all. I mean, I think, you know, we, at our core, we are extremely passionate about what we do. But I think at the same time we are extremely ambitious. And so it was more I think, you know, take every opportunity that comes to the door and turn it into something incredible and how can it lead to something else but I think never in our wildest dreams would be really imagined. that the Yeah, we imagined that it would kind of evolved to the extent that it did.
So going beyond the kind of national boundaries for any businesses is a real challenge. And it's not for the faint hearted. How and how were you kind of making those connections? How did those kinds of projects come about? And I know, obviously, there's a there's a, you know, if you're working in, in Europe and versus working in South Africa, there's going to be lots of different kinds of code changes, how did those relationships begin to work? And in? And how do you deal with like, just the finance and the, you know, what, you're charging people in different countries? How does? How does that kind of all come together?
Yeah. So it's quite a lot to unpack. And Christian, maybe I'll start with the, you know, how it how it happened? I think, also, how do we, how do we mark it. So I think, you know, for us, like any architects, I think you're only as good as your last job. So we certainly put, you know, put a lot of effort into our projects, I think maybe what we do incredibly well, is that we understand the power of imagery. And what I mean by that is the sort of cataloguing and photographic content of our of our projects, and, and obviously, how we put that out into the world in a very specific and curated way, we very meticulous about the way in which our work is, is presented. And that's really at the core of our marketing, you know, we have a quite a big department that we, that we refer to as our media department that that spends a lot of time sort of placing that imagery. And, and we do, and we do talk and do action, you know, some broader overall strategies, but we don't, aren't doing necessarily kind of cold calling. It's really, we understand the power of that imagery. How do we put that in the hands of someone who, you know, the decision maker? And how do we get that seen? And, you know, I was joking a little bit about the Pinterest studio. But, you know, that's really how our first project in in Miami happened is, you know, one of our clients girlfriend sort of had a Pinterest page full of images and someone find, and we answered well, and we spoke good English, and we, you know, very systematized in the way that we work and, you know, again, the curation and that sort of outward perception of us, I think, immediately we overcome a lot of the hurdles of you know, who are these guys? What is Cape Town? You know, do they have electricity there? Well, that's, that's a touchy subject, because at the moment, that's a sensitive issue, but but you get what I mean, it's like, if people, it's quite a leap of faith for people to kind of make that make that leap. You know, of course, I think the next the next phase of that, which is obviously our clientele, and I think we ready, and that's, that's kind of unique, I think, in business, in terms of architecture is that we are able, where you are forced to create quite deeply personal relationships with a lot of your, your clients, and, you know, talking about the way they live, it's not a, it's not a two week transaction, or a six month deal, it's kind of could be, you know, five, six, you know, event, a five, six year event that you kind of need to work through and overcome hurdles together. And, you know, if you come at the end of the other side, in a good place, which, you know, we do our best to do, you know, that relationship counts for a top for a lot. And certainly, if you are dealing with a sort of higher power person who's got high powered friends, and if that person is willing to put stick his neck out and introduce you, I think that that carries a lot of weight. So we, we certainly recognize, we certainly recognize that. So that that's, that's really kind of, you know, fundamental, to the, to the what we do from a kind of, I guess, a business development point of view, but it's not strictly that, because that's, that's kind of the core of it. Yeah, I think, I think the second part of your question in terms of the, the international aspect is, you know, touched on the ambition aspect of it, you know, Cape Town in South Africa, our home and we think there's no city quite like Cape Town in the world, but it is a tiny little city and to kind of fulfill our ambitions and kind of hopes and potential in terms of what I think we can actually deliver as a practice. It's simply not big enough, I mean, in South Africa, they are two other principal cities, which which generate some, some some work, but even even sort of tapping into those, it wasn't enough. So, that was that was kind of part of the push, I guess, in terms of being able to, to operate in a Moore's kind of global global sense. And the other thing from a purely pragmatic business point of view is the the the currency and you know, this stuff African rand. And the benefit of at the cost of living in Cape Town is probably more affordable for the quality of life that you get, you know, anywhere in the world. I think that backed up with the fact that we have access to quite, very talented people who come out of great architecture schools and are very good at what they do. Our service offering to an international level is very appealing. And of course, for us as a business to be able to, to kind of leverage foreign currency is also it was also a great benefit to us. And something that we had we tried to do, I think we didn't know all of those going in. And you know, I think we've learned a lot of it as we as we've kind of gone through it. So those are, obviously, at some point, you realize, hey, we're doing this. And wow, this is actually the potential and so maybe we need to put more into that. And so that, so that was important, that was important to us, then then I think, you know, what I think are we also understanding what our core offering is, in terms of us, compared to others, as I think is our is our design skills? And with this international work linked to your question about how do you evaluate a code that you don't know, in a foreign currency? And how do you navigate, you know, all of those hurdles, and the distance and you know, all of those things, as we also recognize, working on our local work here, that doing kind of full service offering in South Africa is quite an extreme example, because as we've kind of learned, we've now engaging in these foreign markets is for us to do a full service offering here and in locally, a lot falls on the architect's plate, and you just get absolutely murdered on your fees in that final phase of kind of site observation or construction administration, as we, as we call it here. So as a, as a business, we also recognize that, you know, we were just, you know, all the great work we had done up until that point, just basically left the door, because you're beholden to every delay beholden to every setback. And we've also learned, you know, engaging these foreign markets, you know, a lot of a lot of international model is that, you know, that service is offered as an hourly rate, which is a good model, because at least you insulated somewhat, but we strategically also wanted to maybe recognizing that we didn't have boots on the ground in these foreign markets, that that was actually something as a business that we wanted to move away from somewhat and rather focus on the design. And so we've really built a business model around those parameters of where we we focus on that kind of qualifies 50% of a of an Arctic scope, in what's in the South African terms is deemed design development. And then we team up with a local practice. So the client will appoint a local practice, who would, who would oversee the permitting, because obviously, we can't have licenses for every city that we're working in. And then they would also oversee the kind of construction phases of the project. And it's been actually, you know, lots of questions about how do you manage those egos around the table? How does it work practically? And it's not a it's not a standoff relationship. You know, we we really work very well and closely with those local architects, and we really appreciate what they what they do. So it's become a really interesting aspect of what we do. And I mean, I've made wonderful friends with a lot of those architects in that position. And I think as long as the understanding of what you're each bringing to the table is clearly understood and defined. It's a it's a really, it's actually a really powerful relationship. So I think, you know, we never we, and I've also touched on our systems. And I think when we watch you do and 97% of our work is this international model these days, and you know, when, when all of that work is not local to where you are. We have learned early on what are the right questions to ask, we will never go into a foreign place and pretend to understand, you know, how it works or what it works, but evaluating a kind of zoning code. Every zoning code in the world is obsessed with the same things and you know, what to ask Carlos Hyde calculated, how setbacks, what's the basement, definite, you know, all of that, what are the key points, so that stuff's actually pretty, that stuff's pretty easy. I think some of the learning has been in in some of the construction systems and things you know, particularly like in the US, for example, you know, Miami has to contend with Hurricane so that's a very kind of concrete focus construction, right, which we, which we are accustomed to here, whereas on the West Coast, it's all about the seismic so it's about the weight and then it becomes lightweight so so that that those sorts of things are more complex to to navigate. But I think with time and with experience we've we've learned And then of course, we, you know, we, we've got support around the table in terms of these local local experts who we were able to kind of ask those questions
like, well, I guess as well, you know, as your kind of portfolio internationally expands, that's a unique base of knowledge in and of itself, that you're getting these kind of experiences from all these different places, which you can bring to other countries, whether you're working with perhaps a local architect has only ever worked in that one, one region, there's a bit of a experience gap there as well. And I find it really incredible that, you know, that you guys have, you know, moved into 80 Different countries internationally and very intelligent to kind of refine your design offering just to that kind of first portion of the, of the of the design process, and then team up with another, another practice. And yeah, the power of social media, because when my first encounter with you guys was I think it was the first first president house yes, which
projects, beautiful project, I
had a couple of my, on my on my wall in my bedroom was like a kind of dream house vision board, I had at one point, I was like, No, and actually thought that house was in when I first saw it, I thought it was in LA, and then kind of realized the mountain behind is not what they have in Los Angeles. And again, that was just browsing on on Pinterest. And so the kind of photographic imagery that you guys have got of these stunning projects, and they're, they're, they're perfect, as well. But the projects are just sort of, you know, I, you know, that's not the kind of thing you often get in, in, in the West, in Europe and in, in the US, it's very difficult to get that kind of standard of, of design.
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as I said, obviously, we were very particular about the kind of curation of our images, but but, you know, touching you touching on a little bit of interesting subjects there. And I always remember I was, I was struck by it. The first time I went to Bangkok. And, you know, you go to that markets, and I was in some young kids, look, I was a kid at the time, he was making these racket amazing, tailored shirts, and I just thought there any of those beautifully marketed screen and his business card, and I was like, this is just incredible. And then it made me think a little bit about us. Because, you know, that first question has in the context of that setting, and the power of that imagery, and just relating it back to this guy's, you know, so much talent, but he's in this market that are even if I tried, I would never, ever find him again, if I went back, because it's just so you know, so much, so much there. So, we owe a lot to Cat time. Because of that. I think that and off the back of that we've been able to then, you know, have sites and other parts of the world that are just incredible. I mean, I still we constantly pinch ourselves, you know, some of the some of the positions that we're able to kind of create architecture in I mean, it's incredible.
It's very interesting, because I mean, would you classify Cape Town and kind of South African economy as an emerging market? Would that be a fair?
It's a touchy subject at the moment, we would we we would we would like to, I think, probably 10 years ago, we would have said, Yes, we are definitely going through a bit of a wobble at the moment, which is, which is a little bit sad. I think we, you know, obviously, coming through the horrendous past that we've we've had, I think we were we were kind of a little bit of a poster child who was punching above its weight, and everyone was waiting for this expectation that it was just going to take off and be this kind of model democracy. And I think, you know, sadly, there's, there's been a few kind of setbacks to that. So I think, I think maybe we meant to be, but I think everyone's kind of waiting to see how it how it sort of plays out. I mean, there's obviously been a lot going on in the world. And we could certainly use some more foreign investment, but we think certainly, some of the some of the political landscape recall, it is kind of made people kind of second guess, to kind of go all in but but yeah, there's a lot of there's a, we've got a lot to give, I mean, we've there's a really, we could do we Yeah, with some leadership, I think we could be quite an amazing country.
Amazing. I mean, again, it's interesting, because there are some of the like, the locations of some of your private projects, you know, in in somewhere like Los Angeles or elsewhere in the world, it's very, very hard to even get that kind of sight nowadays. And to you know, and to also to have a client who's got like kind of a modernist taste and wants to finish it like that as well becomes even so it just makes these projects even more unique, and they're like these kind of gems. And so they're sort of the The visual imagery of them are very, very seductive and alluring. And I can totally understand how that's how those images of have done the rounds on social media and become a very important pipeline to the, to the practice. In terms of working internationally. Did you have any, like, concerns? Or did clients have concerns about working internationally? So were people finding you online and then starting up a relationship and didn't necessarily know how location based architects normally are? How did you kind of reassured? I mean, I
think it's, it's, it's still a little bit of a challenge to what we what we do? I mean, of course, you get the clients you want, you thrive on it, you know, the I want the first set of projects and wherever, but no, I think we It certainly takes a lot of hand holding, I think now with kind of time passed, obviously, again, you know, my ex client model is, you know, giving referrals and giving them, telling them to speak to people, I think, I think counts for a lot. I think also to some degree, the model one someone's been through it is actually quite appealing for clients, not not all of them realize at first, but you know, obviously, the stress and ordeal of going through a new build is, is stressful. And it's a it's a big commitment. And I think what, what really compounds that stress has been forced to make a decision under pressure. So the nature of kind of our model of refining, and kind of agreeing the design early so that the local architect can then do the kind of construction said, everybody is really incentivized to try and, you know, distill those ideas early and upfront. So that alleviates quite a bit of sort of mental headache, it is an intensive period, and we want our clients to, to love it and make it as enjoyable for them as possible. But but it actually, you know, having gone through it, a lot of them find that that is quite a quite a successful model in terms of engaging it. And yeah, I mean, I think the it is a challenge, and it's a conversation we have regularly with kind of new inquiries in terms of, you know, how it gets dealt with. But I think, you know, once we've explained to them how we work and can kind of also leverage a pretty respectable portfolio of completed projects. I think it alleviates a lot of a lot of the concerns. The other thing is, I think, you had you asked me this question, pre 2020, which, again, sounds ridiculous, but, you know, Zoom has changed everything. So whether you're chatting to me on this call now, or, you know, often, some of those causes, the local architect might also happen on Zoom, because no one wants to get in their car and drive, I think, I think that's made the world feel a little bit smaller. So it's not not a big deal. And, and the other part of it is that I think we, we try to limit travel where we really can, but the reality is that the there is quite a quite a amount of it. I mean, I'm probably in the US four times a year or once a quarter so so off the back of that there's still opportunity to meet and engage and really get to know the clients and have a meal with them and you know, get a feel for things so. So it's it kind of works well. It's it's not it's it's not as scary as it might think of the answer tomorrow think at the onset.
Very interesting. You were saying earlier that the team has grown, like your leadership team has grown to now nine people. How big is the practice? And what's the kind of growth that you've seen in the practice since you started 16 years ago?
So I think when I joined 16 years ago, it was I think we were probably in the order of about 60 people, they kind of grew up to 80, we we had a bit of a delay to the issue. In fact, it was the Dubai Dubai slump that hit us more so we kind of went down right probably back down to 60. We've been upon a pretty steady growth since then. And we are currently probably on the back of I'd say just about on the back of a quite a big growth period. So today we are about 260 people and maybe just a little segue is you know within the with three separate companies, but we call it a kind of group of companies. We also there's a there's an interior design firm called Arc AR RCC an OCO, which is a furniture retailer. So between the three of those companies, we are about, I think 370 Odd. It's kind of as a broader organization. So we, we kind of collaborate with functions separately. I personally don't play a role in art, but some of my fellow principals do. So, yeah, it's it is a it is quite a it is it is a big practice. And, and, and it has gone through quite quite a significant growth in the, in the surgery in the time that that I've been yet. Yeah.
How is the office? How is the architectural component of that then structured so 260 people that's, you know, that's a, that's a lot, a lot, a lot of people for an architecture practice, we're getting into the into into a big realm Han. And obviously, the processes in the ways of management and leadership when you were 60. People, I imagine it's gonna be pretty different now, with with 260, what kinds of evolutions Have you seen and been involved in in terms of creating hierarchy? And making sure that leadership is it operates? Well, and decision making isn't a sort of spinning, spinning indecisively if you like, yeah,
so much. So originally, the company was called Stephan Anthony architects. And then Greg and Phillip, became partners, and the name changed, I think it was around 2010, and two, so to, which is the essay for Stefan Antony Farmersville teeth turn. But the decision at that point in time, was made, which I think has been kind of fundamental to us as a practice was that, I think, and Stephen would say himself, he was kind of got exhausted by having to be the person and the name and, and so the idea was to rather create a company that was not specific to an individual. But that process and that evolution from Stefan to Greg and Phillip, is really the model that has kind of continued on. So from from from there, Felipe became partner, then myself, Logan, who's our financial director, Roxanne. And then as I mentioned, as of today, Danny Remus and Dominic George have also become principals and the structure of the offices that Stephen plays for lack of a better word, a chairman roles because we joke about it, but that he is involved in kind of multiple facets across the across the office logon, and our financial director quite a specific role. And then the remaining of us head out to architectural team. So I got a little bit complicated today because of the new starts. But essentially, the up until today, there have been five principal architectural teams, those teams range in size from 20 to 45 odd people, and we strategically have tried to align the teams to region so the the knowledge that we learn in a certain place, we try to kind of retain that within the team. So we don't have a residential department and a commercial department in the hospitality department. The idea is that rather those the region knowledge is retained within the within the team. So my, my core focus is the US and Caribbean obviously dealt with Dominic joining, we would be kind of doing that together and sit in some of the, you know, Philip, who obviously used to work for still plays a role in some of those areas as well, but principally, it's region that region focused. So, so, in many ways, these those architectural teams kind of function as sort of little studios. So, which I think works really well for us, because, you know, we we thrive on on bespoke and unique design, this you know, as much as we will be trying to create systems and we will make effort to try and generate efficiency and processes, you know, we want to do that, so, that we can focus on on on the kind of key design elements of each project and kind of make it make it flourish. So, so, so it is kind of caught it a collection of little studios, we, from that design point of view, certainly have strategies in place to manage that ensure that kind of a level and when I say consistency, I don't mean it as a cookie cutter, I just mean a level of standard and a level of inquiry is done across the across the team. So we've got, you know, design sessions where, for instance, my team would be presenting this month what What we have on the boards and the rest of the senior management group will sit in, in that meeting, and we all kind of critique it and give it a good bash and give each other, you know, encouragement, good encouragement to, to make things better and stronger. And, you know, and which is, which has been great. And it's something that we, we enjoy and certainly focus on. So that's that's kind of how I managed the, you know, the design aspect of it, I think in the, in terms of the broader decision making, you know, the principal group. We, which might sound strange with so many people, but it really does function on on consensus. I mean, certainly, nothing's nothing's plain sailing. And we, you know, we certainly will have an atom on a couple of things, but we've never had anything weird, hasn't kind of, we reached an agreement that it's come down to some sort of voting structure or anything. So I think, I think those, you know, the those, those discussions are good. And I think we are generally very, very closely aligned. And as I say, I can ever think of something that's kind of never been, that's come to a what do you call it a impasse? impasse? Correct? Yeah,
that's, that's, that's very interesting. And the, so basically, you've got, every person has got a region that they're kind of looking at, or kind of, and the studios and the teams are focused on these individual and these regions are international regions.
Yes, I mean, broad, broad strokes. It's the US and Caribbean, it's Mexico and South America. It's up continents, Africa, Europe, Middle East, and then kind of Southeast Asia and Australia. So we also we try and manage the time zones, you have to work in the trips you have to make. I mean, there's a lot of efficiencies in terms of doing it that way. I mean, the one other thing, which, you know, I think is what is one of the greatest things we have, in terms of our kind of spread is, is from a, you know, somewhere, you know, Greg Boyce tells the story is you know, Lagos was one of our strongest markets at a point in time, oil prices fell to the floor. It ended, Los Angeles blew up. So So we've kind of got these. And, you know, we've seen, we've seen that happening now, certainly, Florida and Dubai have been incredibly strong over the last kind of three years. I mean, Florida has kind of started to taper off device to Strong's but you know that that influences those regions somewhat as because some of the teams might not have the influx of work that others have. And so you might end up that you pick up a job to where other teams are taking strain. And, and we do generally retain clients. So there's an occasion where we, our client might be, you know, building something in Europe that we've worked with before, and that relationships important. So we would, you know, we would run the team would kind of retain that would retain that relationship. What
does it take to be a director, or a partner of a firm? I think this is really interesting to consider, because it's not for everybody.
Yeah. One of our challenges, I guess, is, is the, it is a demanding environment. I think also even just in just this explanation of how we work. Generally, you need to be quite around because, you know, I my role in terms of managing my team is managing a sizable team. I've also you know, often and look I'm not discard him in because we have a very strong APA management group who do a lot of this a lot of the kind of onboarding exercises as well and owning the client relationships, but you you need to be able to have a strong management aspects, you need to have a design, because a lot of the way we the leadership in the office, a lot of that is actually done through design and because that's what we do, you know, your leadership with your clients, there's also you need to be able to be the one in that meeting, who can come up with an idea that no one else has thought of, on the spot. And so, so it's, it's, it is quite a demanding role in this office because we don't have the kind of kind of partition roles per se. But I think I think the so but, but also, I think it's a big a big part of it is the is the people aspect. And I don't mean that in terms of general sense because I think if you're a great designer, you can lead to that design and people through that you don't have to be the friendliest person at the table. But as long as people recognize, you know, what you want you can do. And of course, we can also because we have the teams we do you know, you, you could potentially supplement some of those those personalities, if need be to kind of have a bolder, and leverage those kind of relationships. And if there are any kind of roles or aspects of it to be supplemented.
Did you as directors, are you involved in the winning of work? Or is that like, do you have like your own marketing team and a sale and like sales teams, people who are like full time allocated to that work to that task, or that split amongst the directors.
So, so this, this is kind of what is getting like the without how important our imagery is, we don't have a sales, we don't have a sales team, we really rely on that, to generate work or for us to kind of leverage the relationships that we that we have. So off the back of that we get a lot of inquiries that come into the office, that is then kind of received based on the region by you know, myself and the in the senior management within my team. And then we wouldn't we would engage, we would engage with him. So yeah, we are very active in that in that role of kind of call it securing work right. And and generating but but it the work is kind of self generated, I guess of the content that we you know, that we that remarket
and when a inquiry comes into the office, how was it allocated to a particular director or a particular team? I guess it's it's kind of regionally focused
region region based in the region, correct? Yeah. Great,
great. And in, in terms of the kind of business skills that are needed, so you know, the identification of systems them understanding finance, HR, or all of these things, they have their own separate teams within the office or, again, does the directors need to have some kind of understanding of, of how those processes operate?
We have, we have great people in all of those departments. But the directors are certainly extremely involved in, in all of those aspects. I think, you know, I've said the word a few times, but it's taken years to refine it and continue to evolve. But you know, logon ft is an incredible suite of documents that she's kind of been able to refine that allows us to kind of see where we stand kind of financially, what's the forecast looking like, really enables us to make decisions on a kind of ongoing, ongoing basis. And, you know, that even gets filtered down into the senior management of the team in terms of how the project is performing. Is everything as we expected it to be, you know, so. So we are extremely involved in in all of those aspects, I think, certainly the HR team supports us very well. But but it's still a fairly direct relationship. And with all the or not fairly, it is a very direct relationship with everybody kind of in the in the studio and the teams. How does
financial information get communicated across the business? I mean, I speak to a lot of kind of larger firms who usually nowadays most firms are kind of quite transparent with their financials and might do a quarterly presentation to the rest of the team to sort of show things like profit and loss statements and their balance sheets, and, you know, how they're how well you're progressing towards a kind of financial series of, of targets, just so the rest of the business understand what's going on. And also from a project managers perspective, you know, they need to know what the budgets are on projects with fees, how do you guys manage the conversation around finance beyond the immediate directors?
So we have happens at a at a at a couple of levels. So we, we have sort of when I refer to the senior management group, it's we refer to it as a past group, which is the principal's associates and senior staff group. And so we have a sort of, it's probably twice a year we will have a kind of overall report of kind of, you know, how are we done? How are we doing? What's the forecast looking like? It's, it's, it's in fairly fairly general terms, but But I mean, kind of gives a very good sense of, of where we, where we at. And then we have a monthly meeting, kind of just pre invoices being sent out with the those past members and each of the each of the teams and they we would go through a I'm very specifically, everybody's projects and you know, each of the each of the, in my team, for example, I've got five people in that in that group, and they've all got their projects. And, you know, we've set targets for the year, and we can monitor how those projects are going. We were forecast to do a certain invoice by, you know, this this month, is it ready to go? Why can't it go? You know, so. So they are extremely involved in their, in their specific projects. And, and certainly in that meeting, we would touch on a kind of a little bit of a litmus test of how they've kind of broader offices is doing. And so there's in terms of those those targets, I think it's it's very kind of, you know, clear in terms of what the, you know, what the expectations are and what those numbers sort of represents. So it's fairly, it's fairly transparent. I mean, I wouldn't say it's entirely but I think that we'd have a very good understanding of, of kind of where things stand
in terms of becoming a director in the business, and that perhaps you can relate to your own personal experience. What What was that career trajectory? Like? Because it's something that you decided upon earlier on that you wanted to be a director, and you started to make that known? Or were you kind of identified and cultivated and nurtured for directorship position? And if so, what do you think it was about yourself that, that led to that?
I think that certainly, when I, when I joined, I don't I definitely did not join thinking that this would be my, my career. And to be fair, that business was not what it is today, it was still an impressive artwork, but it wasn't what it is today. Yeah, I kind of thought that I'd be here for you know, two to five years, and then I kind of had dreams of going to pursue a master's in Columbia, New York, and then I'd come back and start my own practice. But, you know, as I was, then, you know, I was, I was, I clearly was identified, I think I was fairly well kind of looked after. And, and I could, and then really, what, what was the big change for me was that, that work in the US that kind of, almost came out of out of nowhere, it was, I could recognize at that point that I could take us somewhere, and I could be someone in the in the firm. And so probably three or four years into that I really sort of felt that I was, I mean, at the point at that point in time, I was probably early 30s, and kind of trying to work out and, you know, when I thought about it, and I looked left and right. You know, this is this could really, this could really go somewhere. And so I kind of grabbed those opportunities and ran with it. So I think it's a bit of both, I think I put my hand up, and I think it was noticed. And and I think that, you know, that that that certainly helped a lot. I mean, in terms of my personal strengths, I think I think it is probably a bit of the or roundedness that I I think I think helps I think it's is those qualities of being an all rounder, being a decent manager, being good at design. And, and, and I think really having a work ethic and and sort of ambition and kind of drive that people can recognize that you can, you know, maybe really sort of contribute so. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's probably probably how it happened. I mean, at the same time, I can't unless I'm very lucky that I felt like I found myself in that in that position. But I think I think subconsciously that that was the opportunity I was I was looking for and was able to take it
mazing and and now when you're kind of looking at the sort of next generation of partners and leaders in the firm, what do you look for, with for team members? And how do you kind of nurture that talent or how they are in general? How do you kind of retain talent so that they stick around and help them develop career pathways? Is that a formalized process or what does it look like?
Yeah, certainly we ever see spinning a lot. We spend a lot of time discussing it because we've got incredibly talented people within within the office and obviously this you know, post 2020 The Way Things Work we you know, People are looking around. And it's not always easy to retain people. I think also the obviously the growth of the, of the businesses potentially opened opportunities for, for more people in leadership in leadership roles. And I think the, the, in terms of a formal process, I mean, I think the path is set, and I still maintain that, you know, that very original model is then still what we're what we're running today. And, and we were very open to it. And I think, you know, if you, again, you know, put your hand up and can prove that you can, you know, function independently and are, are willing and capable, capable to do it, we are very happy to kind of facilitate it and make room and, you know, provide the, the, the support and, and, in backup that someone might need to kind of take that to take that next step. I mean, I think we also, you know, talk a lot about trying to, you know, potentially find other areas of the business, you know, we've we've been in this kind of growth cycle where, you know, we maybe need to look at the global area, and could potentially get some specialists in certain, certain roles to kind of help take us to the, to the next level, so, but, again, even in that, I think we, you know, also feel that the right person will, will kind of make that make that step happen happen for us. So that, you know, we obviously, trying to create the framework that that attack could still happen. But yeah, very, very important to us is that is obviously the kind of longevity of the business and how we can, you know, I think we've always been a, we've always been a fairly young practice, and we want to make sure that that is still very much at the kind of core of our DNA. And I don't, I don't mean that, really only on an age point of view. But I think just in terms of what the kind of general experience in that and more that kind of personality of the of the culture of the office that we that we want to maintain. So we know, we know, it's important. And I think, you know, this announcement today, I think, is kind of further further used to that, that we that we open to it and want to make it want to make it happen for those that are capable.
Do you have a lot of international talent? Or is it all homegrown South Africa and Cape Town architects.
So the capital have a couple of challenges to that we do have some we do have some international. One of the one of the challenges to that is, you know, working in South Africa, we have a horrendous unemployment rate. So it is extremely difficult for foreigners to get to get work permits to work here. Having said that, you know, post COVID We are I say hybrid, but we all work from home, we have a beautiful office, which is open for anyone that wants to be but majority of people are working from home. So that that certainly has opened the door to which has been wonderful for our growth because now we can employ specifically, technically people from anywhere, but we've been able to employ great people in Johannesburg or Pretoria or or KwaZulu Natal, or many other South African centers, which has been great for us. And so we do have some internationals. But you know, the the other the other problem is when you when you look at what you can afford in South Africa, it's quite difficult to justify, you know, a foreign foreign cell salary. But yeah, if we can, if we can make it work, we certainly are open to it, there's always a couple of challenges that tend to surround it.
Have you ever considered having international offices? It's interesting, you know, this the structure is you've got the kind of the teams already set up by region has it has it has been a discussion to kind of actually go and set offices up in different countries, which is what most other practice a lot of practices do.
So I'm laughing because it's something we probably talk about every three months. I mean, it's, it's yeah, it's certainly something that we look at the honest answer is that our model, as it is, is so sound that it's quite a skid, it's almost impossible to justify to justify those kind of foreign entities. We've tried. We tried once in Dubai, I mean, even likely, we tried but they never really worked I think so but at same time a we do talk about a lot. And it's definitely we would never rule it out. Because I think, you know we do, we'd like to make it work. And the things we constantly ask ourselves is, you know, what are we missing out on by not being there, because when you look at the model, as it stands today, opening that foreign businesses is kind of just going to hurt what we have here. So it's very, it's a very difficult thing to, to justify. But we certainly weren't wouldn't wouldn't rule it out. I think it's at some point, we, I'm sure, we will find a way to make to get it to work. But it's for some reason, way harder than than you might think.
Amazing, brilliant. What does the rest of 2023 have in store for you? And what are you looking forward to in the in the upcoming years?
So yeah, things are looking things are looking really good. I mean, my my side of the office in the US has probably been a little bit quieter than normal for the past few months, but seem to be picking up a little bit. Now. We optimistic that China might be kind of starting to fire again, although it seemed like a word. And then it's kind of slowed a little bit. We've got a couple of projects kicking off the now and so that's potentially over the next little while, you know, all of that pent up all those pent up projects that never kind of got shelved might, might start to surface again. So yeah, it's looking, it's looking pretty, pretty good. I think the other sides of the office, we've been quite busy in India at the moment, Middle East is still busy. So it's looking like it should be another good year.
Amazing. Brilliant. Well, that's place to conclude the conversation, mark that's been absolutely fascinating to hear, but a little bit, a little peek behind the scenes that say Iota and to hear about your your own personal career trajectory, and all the amazing stuff you guys are doing. So I really appreciate your time this afternoon. Thank you.
It was fun. Thank you so much.
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