Change Agent: Diana Hoang, Spear Realty

Connect CRE Canada has launched a new leadership series in which we interview Canadian commercial real estate industry leaders about emerging trends, keys to their companies’ success and other factors that enable them to be difference-makers.

Today’s interview is with Diana Hoang, the founder and CEO of Toronto-based investment and development firm Spear Realty.

Here, she explains how her company has achieved its goals and offers insights on diversity, equality, and inclusion. She also provides advice for the industry’s rising stars.

(Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and other factors.)

What recent organizational accomplishment brings you the most satisfaction? What specific challenges did it overcome, and what key factors led to its success?

We achieved the organization’s goals objective. We doubled in size in one fiscal year. We overcame the hiring/recruitment threshold through focus and determination.

How do you navigate the transition from established practices to pioneering new frontiers within your organization? 

We focus on goals and objectives.  You can’t lose sight of precision and execution. Today is an example. I took my core team, which is the core support administration research staff, and went through everybody’s individual roles and how we can enhance each role by allowing each staff to think about their current role, what little movement they can make to make a change step by step.

We’re not going to be able to climb Mount Everest today or in one week, but every week, we look at: What are we doing now? How can we enhance it by starting off by 2% or 5%? How can we make a difference? Giving an example, with our research team, they’re providing dashboards for the market. How are they going to add another 5% to this role that they’re already doing, whether it’s incorporating artificial intelligence or looking at different markets that we should be comparing it to?

So, those are a course of action. We don’t lose sight of what we’re going after, which is constantly improving the process to make the process better.

What recent industry advancement impresses you the most, and why?

The advancement of AI technologies and the advances they may offer to improve client services and delivery.

What are the essential elements for achieving significant progress within your organization and the industry as a whole?

Not repeating the same mistakes. Reaching out and having mentors in the industry and peers for advice.

As we acknowledge the industry’s rising stars, what guidance can you offer them to become catalysts for positive change?

Understand where the market is going, as the market is forever changing. Own your skill set by reading articles, constantly learning from other peers in the industry, reading, listening to podcasts in your industry and looking at different industries that are parallel to the industry that we’re focusing on.

We can look at the past as well. These new young professionals that are getting into the business, they really have to learn and really absorb every ounce of information, whether it’s from the news, whether it’s from your clients, whether it’s from your peers, and also just hearing from the other industries. If there’s a downfall in recession, how are they dealing with it? How can we use that information? If they’re not able to sell construction projects, why is that? How? What do they do differently? Just looking at trends and and doing their market overview, that’s how they become the professionals that they are in their sector.

Reviewing right now, the big trend is tech: Artificial intelligence. I speak about that again. Utilize it. That’s something that we are trying to empower our people with. Don’t be afraid of different avenues of finding information.

Looking forward, what critical changes do you foresee for the industry in the coming years? What advancements do you hope for?

Better professionalism. Better ethics. More gender equality.

We continue to press upon diversity, inclusion and equality. How do we pertain to that at Spear? Our model is one-to-one hire: Male to female or vice versa. That’s always been the model for our company. It’s not whether we have to hire a female, but we do like to have that pattern. Even the seating arrangement is male-female-male-female, just to get the variety and equality. Our company is very diversified in culture as well.

But better professionalism. Better training. For the industry, that’s super-important. That’s what makes our industry: Professionalism.

Click here to see the full Change Agents: Leaders Driving Progress series.