When Justin Young took on the role of chief executive officer of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) this summer, he was fully aware of the scale of the challenge facing him.
The institution, which was founded in 1868, has had a torrid couple of years following the governance scandal in 2019, which plunged it into an existential crisis and sparked the departure of many of the senior leadership team.
Now, six months after leaving Knight Frank and officially taking over as chief executive from interim CEO Richard Collins on 5 July, Young acknowledges that RICs is at a “pivotal point” and that he has joined the institution at a “crucial” time.
But Young, who not only boasts a strong track record of business transformation across multiple industry sectors but also spent time in the military commanding a tank troop during ‘Operation Desert Storm’ in the 1990s, is not daunted by the challenge.
Rather the reverse. He is relishing it. Since joining RICS, he has been busy putting in place the foundations for the transformation of the institution. BE News caught up with him just before he headed off to COP28 to find out how his first six months have gone and how he intends to transform the organisation and keep staff, existing and new members and stakeholders of the RICS happy.
As somebody who was watching from the outside as the governance scandal unfolded, what were your thoughts on what occurred?
I’m really pleased to be here and what I’ve found since I arrived is that there is this energy and desire for change. People absolutely know that the RICS has had a turbulent couple of years, but the people – and particularly those people who stayed here through that turbulent time – are absolutely up for change, which is really great to see.
So, there was already this momentum when I came in. To look at the situation that happened on the standards and regulation side, it was clear that internally things had got to a stage where it wasn’t a beneficial relationship anymore. It’s fundamental to the RICS that we have self-regulation within the overall umbrella. So, it came to a head and some people departed. But what’s fantastic now is that we have in Nigel Clark, who is the interim chair of the standards and regulation board, somebody who is absolutely supportive of the collaboration that’s required to deliver independent regulation.
I know that sounds a little counterintuitive, but within an umbrella organisation you have a very, very strong wall between the professional body and the regulatory part of the organisation and because it’s the members who are at the coalface the whole time, they’re the ones who are feeding in: ‘This is where we need regulation, this is what we need to do.’ So, you’ve got to have that connectivity within the overall RICS to make sure that the regulation is relevant and it’s tackling the right things.
A lot of people would have shied away from the challenge. What made you think you were the right person to drive the organisation forward?
My background is in business transformation and I’ve done that in the property sector, legal sector and the tech sector. So for me, this was just such a great opportunity to get hold of an organisation that’s absolutely steeped in history. But it’s also really important that we have a really well functioning RICS that can fulfil its remit. That was more interesting to me than just another company that’s very focused on making profits, etc. Having been at Knight Frank and gained an understanding of the property industry, I was very keen to come into an organisation like this, which had a broader remit.
What was the first thing you did when you took on the role?
I got out on the road. I went off to Northern Ireland and also to the South East and I met lots of members and chatted to the regional boards. I think where the RICS had lost its way over the last couple of years is it took its eye off the members, and they are fundamental. They are the reason for us being really. So, I’ve done a lot of engagement with members to make sure that we are listening and delivering what they want, whether that’s regionally in the UK or outside the UK, and to make sure that we’ve got capability locally to help people do things that are local.
I always think property is quite a local game. Yes, there’s lots of international stuff, but really it’s quite a local game. So, that’s where you need resources from the RICS to help people in the local areas do what they need to do and make membership a better experience.
I also spoke to lots of members of staff, because I always come from the perspective that if you have happy, motivated staff in an organisation, they will deliver brilliant client service. You can’t just focus on clients and not look after the staff. You’ve got to do them both in parallel. So, that’s what I’ve been focusing on doing: giving people more of an idea about what it is to be RICS and actually to be proud of being RICs, which I think perhaps they haven’t been for the last couple of years.
What were members telling you when you spoke to them?
There was a spread of opinion. People want us to make it simple and straightforward for them to engage with the RICS, so they can get the things they need. So, that’s very much around all of the thought leadership and technical brilliance that comes out of the knowledge and practice groups here and making sure that we can get that information to members easily. We want to try and make it as simple as possible for our members to get together and to network because it’s the property industry – that’s what people like doing.
It is also about helping our members build their businesses and deliver what their clients need. If you think of a couple of the really big issues in the sector at the moment, sustainability is absolutely one of them. People now know that 40% of carbon emissions come from the built environment, but what are we doing about it? A couple of weeks ago we put out the second edition of the whole life carbon assessment standard and we’ve also got the RICS carbon database, so for me it’s making sure people understand that we’ve developed the tools that can help them measure and track how they’re actually getting on. There’s going to be increasing focus on the built environment around sustainability. There’s also the education piece and making sure that the topic of sustainability is kept at the forefront of people’s minds. That’s not just the minds of our members but also of government and other big stakeholders and investors. So, I see that as very much a part of the RICS’s job.
What feedback did you get from members of staff around what had happened and what needed to change?
From the staff, it was: ‘It’s great you’re here and that you understand the industry and you have experience in business transformation, so you can help us do the things that we need to do to change.’ There are some hugely talented people here. It’s just a question of corralling them and pointing everything in the right direction and making sure that we collaborate. And that’s not just collaboration within the organisation, but also collaboration with the members and other stakeholders. We now have a stronger relationship with government across a number of departments and we’re influencing policy. So, quite a lot of it is actually plugging our members into the right place where they can give that guidance to government.
The RICS is a global organisation and for a lot of UK members, the extent of the international focus was a big problem. How do you balance the needs of UK and international members?
I’m looking to make sure that we get the right balance. Seventy per cent of members are in the UK – around 90,000 people and we’re at 135,000 members globally. So, the balance is absolutely here in the UK. As with all organisations that are global, you can take slightly different approaches in different markets, depending on the opportunity for growth in the market or what people need on the ground at any particular time. It’s about making sure that we’re balancing the right resources in the UK and giving people in the UK what they need, but also having enough resources globally.
If you’re going to be properly global, you’ve got to learn from each other. So not absolutely everything has to be invented at 12 Great George Street [where the RICS head office is located]. There will be some brilliant things that are happening in Europe or APAC that we can all learn from. For me, it’s about the connectivity as well. It’s not, we do stuff in the UK and then we push it out to the rest of the world. It’s a free flow of information and that means people can learn from each other and everybody benefits from being global.
ESG and DE&I are top of the agenda for many organisations. RICS recently launched a TikTok campaign to get more 16- to 18-year-olds into the industry. What else are you doing to improve diversity?
It is a really critical topic for us. What I’ve asked the team here to look at is what do we do for our members at each stage of their life with RICS, or their career. Member engagement goes in waves in terms of how committed they are and how much time they spend interacting with RICS. They may spend less time engaging for a period and then they may come back and engage more, depending on what’s happening in their life. For me, the next generation is critical and it’s the diverse next generation that we absolutely need to attract. Hence, we are creating packs that members can take into schools in their local areas and talk to 14 and 16-year-olds about the industry.
I was in Liverpool at the Labour Party Conference trying to raise awareness of the fact that in Wales, there is a GCSE around the built environment, but there isn’t one in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. Surely we can do something about this. We’re trying to get those kinds of conversations going with people who are in the education sector as well. We have a lot of accredited universities that do RICS-related courses and we’re increasing the size of the team here that’s going to liaise with those universities and help them get into a better position where they can also attract a really good diverse group of people onto their courses and then get them into the industry.
Then, when people arrive here we have Matrics, which is the organisation within RICS that is focused on members in the first 10 years of their careers. They put on more than 300 events this year. It’s all about trying to really get people engaged and helping them build their own networks, build their businesses and start to learn from each other.
How does RICS educate people on issues such as retrofit versus knock down and rebuild?
For me, it’s about making sure that we deliver the information people need, whether it’s through our briefings, our education – so the CPD tracks – or just information that comes out of our annual sustainability report. It’s also about doing more high-profile events, such as COP28, and about putting our name and our weight behind the initiatives that we think can really work. Our aim is to help our members understand what it means for them and how they can then bring it into their work. Their clients are also demanding change. We see investors putting a premium on green buildings. We see the circularity discussion going on in the construction industry and the fact that you can now get 100% recycled concrete. It’s about making sure our members are on top of the subject and can start to make a difference. We’ve also got these tools, such as the whole life carbon assessment tool, which allows them to measure their progress and see how they’re doing. The final factor is having influence within government to make sure that the built environment sustainability agenda remains front of mind for them.
What’s your read on the market at the moment?
We have a pretty flat, downbeat outlook for the next 12 months through 2024, both residentially and commercially. There’s more optimism after that. So, I think that’s the general feel as to where we are in the cycle.
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