Who is David Phillips’ new CEO and what’s his vision for the business? Ben Munn shares the story of his background in the property world and his excitement for the future of the company.
What’s your professional background and how did it lead you to David Phillips?
Since starting in real estate over 25 years ago I have been fascinated by how environments shape the experiences of the people that use them. Creating better spaces for people to feel engaged, productive, happy and be themselves has been a central theme to my career.
I began my real estate journey with a temp job in a design and architecture firm's print and post room where my colleagues generously shared their knowledge, which sparked my interest in the built environment. I was fortunate to move through marketing, technology, and consulting roles across the firm, and learned to create exceptional work, retail, and leisure spaces.
Working with major companies like Google and Coca-Cola I recognised what their people needed to be productive, successful and engaged. However, I also noticed that traditional real estate's long leases and inflexible spaces didn't meet modern business needs. This led me to join Regus (now IWG), where I helped create more adaptable, homelike workspaces through the "hotelisation" of work environments.
Most recently, I started and ran JLL’s flexible workspace offer across the UK, US and Australia. We started this during Covid, which has, of course, focused everyone’s attention on home environments. We all got to see into our colleagues’ and clients’ homes through Zoom and Microsoft Teams and see into their personal lives in a way we hadn’t before.
So, when the opportunity to work at David Phillips came along it felt like a natural progression. The opportunity to play a role in creating the spaces people live in – from student accommodation to apartments and homes – is inspiring.
Now that you’re in the role, how do you feel about it?
Proud, excited, and energised – but mostly privileged to work with the team to shape our product and service offering. David Phillips is a great business. And the team has put together something unique in our part of the market. I am lucky to arrive in a business that has a wide breadth of talent and skills that allows us to help our customers achieve their goals. We have a strong focus on sustainability and having a positive impact through the work we do. The more I see of the business, the more excited I am about our ability to grow and to do more for customers.
What do you see as the strengths of the business?
Three themes stand out for me. The first is people. The talent in the organisation is phenomenal and the business has now grown to a scale where we can bring together experts across critical areas such as inventory management, product, sales, design and operations. It’s a young, diverse team that is skilled in collaboration.
Second is the strength and depth of our offer. We offer furniture, design and fitted services that can serve the full lifecycle of our customers’ assets and businesses. It takes strong teams to make all the parts of this complex business work together – from stylists understanding a market and what works for a particular price, to operations and inventory making sure all our product is available when needed. Our installation team is superb; their attention to detail and care for getting things right the first time is a real differentiator for us.
And the third theme is the diversity of our customer base. We cover build-to-rent, student accommodation, the private rented sector and furniture rental – pretty much the whole residential market. This diversity sets us up to deal with changing market conditions and it means we can be a partner at scale for owners, investors, operators, property managers and agents who play in some or all these spaces.
How will you drive growth?
By focusing on our customers. Our success will be driven by a crystal-clear view of what our customers want. Putting their needs at the centre of our thinking, shaping our business around serving them, making it easy for them to access our services and delivering high-quality solutions that satisfy their end users – that’s where our growth will come from. And our scale means we can be a strategic, long-term partner for our biggest clients.
What other strategic aims and objectives do you have?
Sustainability is key to our success and a major priority for our customers, so we’re working with our suppliers to ensure we deliver products made with a circular economy approach. One example is a sofa in our product range made from renewable and recycled materials and is itself fully recyclable. Technology is another critical piece of our strategy. Our proprietary platform and soon-to-be-launched disruptive technology make it easy for our customers to operate across many buildings and transform the way they work with us.
Do you see opportunity in particular markets?
Our core market is the UK, but we have had an international presence for a long time via investors and owners looking for trusted long-term partners. All markets, however, have growth opportunities. The expansion in BTR and PBSA is not unique to the UK, which is a relatively sophisticated market – there is lots of potential to apply our capabilities and strengths internationally.
How important is partnership to David Phillips?
It's central to how we work. Our relationship with estate agency group Lomond is an example of how we partner with large clients: we offer furniture services across the group, so any agents in their network can tap into our services and expertise. With suppliers, we’re co-developing products that will be uniquely available through David Phillips, which continues to reinforce our reputation for quality and innovation.
What are the key trends you see in the market?
There’s a huge gap in the supply of new homes and rising expectations from renters, who want a better environment in home spaces, where they now spend more time. Together, these forces create a strong opportunity for our services – and they are not unique to the UK.