John Preece

Knight Frank is the world'’s leading independent commercial and residential real estate consultancy, and has 24 offices and more than 1,000 staff across Australia. Head of Office Agency, John Preece, has been in the role since February after joining Knight Frank in 2011 to start up the Global Corporate Services and Project Management & Building Consultancy divisions. In parallel, he was also the managing director of the company'’s Sydney North Shore operations from mid 2013.

John has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the real estate sector that spans more than 20 years. He sat down with The CEO Magazine to discuss what strategies he is starting to roll out to propel Knight Frank forward, and how he is opening his ears to client feedback and is proactively making changes.

The CEO Magazine: How are you listening to client feedback and using it to drive new strategies?

John: When you step into a new role, the first thing you do is go and speak to the clients and find out what they are saying about the industry as a whole, and specifically about your business—in my case, Knight Frank’s office leasing team. It sounds obvious, but my focus is delivering on what our clients are telling me they want, and that is higher levels of sophistication and better qualified professionals, rather than ‘just another agent’. All of the strategies I am implementing are wholly centred on this client feedback.