I am a Canadian, originally from a relatively small town in Ontario, but have been living in London since 2014. I was previously working with Brookfield in Toronto in the Renewable Energy M&A team when I got offered the chance to move over to London with the Chief Investment Officer for Brookfield’s Renewable Energy Group to launch the European office and team. After 5 years working in the renewable energy space and making our first investments in Europe, the opportunity came up to switch sectors within the company and help establish the Portfolio Management Group for our European Real Estate business. I was interested in the opportunity because being a part of the portfolio management team would give me the chance to learn from and work closely with our Senior Management Teams to drive and implement the value creation strategies that we underwrite during acquisition.

One of the businesses that Brookfield owns and that I get the pleasure of working with is Center Parcs UK, the well-known family holiday destination which currently has 5 locations across England. For the last two years we have been building a 6th parc in Ireland, which finally opens to the public in July! We are really excited to start opening this parc and see how the Irish consumer adopts this popular UK-concept.

Keeping my calendar and travel organized. Thankfully we have a phenomenal assistant on our team who organizes my entire life and thinks ahead for anything I might need while I am travelling or for a meeting. I couldn’t get through the work day without her.

Getting comfortable with asking stupid questions. When I switched sectors from renewable energy to real estate, I was expected to work on transactions and projects despite initially having limited understanding of sector-specific risks or even the lingo. At first, it was incredibly intimidating as I was working with highly regarded CEOs and Management teams with more than 20-30 years of experience. I was expected to sit with them in board meetings and monitor financial performance or challenge operational and investment decisions, but I was worried my questions would expose my limited knowledge. I eventually got over the fear thanks to one very patient management team and started asking a number of, what I considered silly/basic questions. I still remember the day my colleague came up to me after one Management Team meeting and mentioned how smart my questions had been and asked how I knew so much about the topic. That was when it really clicked for me that I wasn’t the only one in the room that didn’t have all the answers. Since then, I ask about everything no matter how silly the question is (and still about 80% of my questions are!). It is the only way to learn and also helps ensure we are making the best decisions within our businesses that maximize the profit for our investors.