Name: Samar Shaheryar
Job title: co-CEO at Spring
What I do: As Co-CEO of Spring, my role is multi-dimensional. I’m responsible for strategy, growth and our financial performance. Essential to that is creating a culture that allows our company to thrive. I do that by maintaining a balance between being now-focused and future focused, by creating a safe, supportive environment for challenge and innovation to thrive, and by putting people – our customers and our employees – at the heart of everything we do.
Why I got into the property industry: A well-functioning property industry is important to every society in the world, which makes it a great place for someone who likes solving complex problems and the intersection of public policy and private industry. I also love the diversity of jobs in the industry which encompasses every type of career including creative, technical, operational and manual work. I’m a generalist, not a specialist so property is a great place to flex lots of different muscles.
How I did it: By a very winding path. I worked in banking for 10 years in a variety of roles and then spent six years founding and running an e-commerce social enterprise where I added operational and marketing skills to my financial ones. I started working with Spring five years ago when it was called National Property Trade, to shape their marketing strategy and my role grew into responsibility for the operation as chief operating officer and eventually to co-CEO.
My first proper job: I started out in banking in the US, working for JP Morgan in corporate bond research. I had to analyse the performance of companies whose bonds we traded, which gave me a grounding in what good companies look like. Eventually I became a bond trader, making fast risk and capital management decisions. It’s no coincidence that Spring is a property trader – deciding the price to buy and the price to sell residential homes requires an ability to be comfortable with risk and know how to manage that risk.
My first big break: I had an incredible first boss, Margaret Cannella at JP Morgan. She was shattering glass ceilings in a way that was unimaginable to me – driving herself to be 10x better than the people around her as that is what it took to climb the corporate ladder for women in her time. She took me under her wing and gave me far more responsibility than I deserved as a 21-year-old. That responsibility gave me confidence that I have used for the rest of my career. Knowing the role a great manager can play in a life drives me to be a good manager to our employees.
My inspiration(s): Yves Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. He built a powerhouse of a company while focusing on creating tremendous value for the planet and his employees. Well ahead of his time, he provided on-site child care in 1984, committed 10% of company profits to environmental causes by 1986, including paying his team to volunteer for the environment and by 1996 had switched Patagonia entirely to organic cotton. He just announced that he is donating his ownership in the company to a trust for the purpose of addressing climate change. A great role model for conscious capitalism.
The biggest challenge I’ve encountered to date: Failing at being a social entrepreneur. While my venture had great impact, it didn’t grow as fast as it needed to survive. But failure is such a great teacher. I made a lot of mistakes, especially around prioritisation of my time and activities. I’m quite ruthless about strategic prioritisation and focus at Spring, because I learned what it costs when you don’t get that right.
My greatest achievement/proudest moment to date: We have weathered two big crises well – the pandemic and the mini-budget, by being nimble, listening to our customers and communicating with our employees. Trust has been so important in both of these difficult periods and we make sure we remember how hard it is to earn and how easy it is to lose.
My biggest screw-up: Fortunately, we have an effective enough of a system of checks at work that screw ups can be caught before getting too big, but the times I really think about later and regret are when I feel I haven’t been a great leader – not being open enough to an idea, forgetting to check in with my team before barrelling ahead with a priority, giving opinions when I should really be asking more questions, telling my team what to do rather than trusting them to find the solution. These mistakes matter, because they make our company less open, which goes to the heart of our ability to keep innovating and improving.
The biggest misconception people have about the property industry: That it is only about buildings. I love that the industry is full of professionals in tech, services, finance, creative fields and yes, the built environment too.
My biggest bugbear about the industry/the one thing I would change about the industry: The lack of gender and ethnic diversity in management ranks and the slow speed of adoption of innovation. I’m sure the two are connected.
Where I’d like to be in five years’ time career-wise: Solving the dysfunctional long transaction time of UK residential property, which is one of our industry’s most significant challenges.
My main career goals right now: Completely focused on making Spring the best property company to work at in the UK as well as the most profitable.
Who I’d invite, living or dead, to a dinner party: The best dinner party guests make you laugh, surprise you with their conversation and/or break out a guitar and sing for you. So, I’d have Miriam Margoyles to be hilariously inappropriate, MacKenzie Scott who has sparked my curiosity and admiration for giving away money faster than anyone before her, and I’d love Bruce Springsteen with a guitar after the plates have been cleared away and we’re too stuffed to move.
What I do in my downtime: Not much downtime as a mum of three primary school kids! When I can get away, I love reading, hiking, traveling, dancing. And shocking my 25-year-old self, I now really enjoy cooking.
The job I’d be doing if I was not doing this: Would love to be improving the education sector. I’m a passionate primary school governor and believe that a strong state education system is the cornerstone for a successful society. Good teachers are absolute heroes and I wish they were valued more.
My advice for someone just starting out: Be a good employee – you will get noticed and go further, faster. What does it mean to be a good employee? Likely different things at different places, but I look for someone who is constantly learning and interested in improving themselves, tries to solve a problem before bringing it to me, is able to both challenge and be challenged and has integrity, so can be trusted to make good decisions.
My motto/mantra: “The key to happiness is to know that nothing is yours, even in the midst of abundance.” Reminds me to always practice gratitude, because nothing is really fully in my control.
