Careers at Foxtons: Property Manager
Matthew Finch, Head of Tenancy and Accounts, gives his personal account of working at Foxtons.
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Hear from our Property Managers
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Matthew Finch, Head of Tenancy and Accounts
Having left university and spending a year at drama school, I started my first career as a actor/dancer. Lots of repertory work, a couple of pantomimes and two West End shows later, I moved to the other side of the curtain running the front of house operation of a theatre. There, I worked up the ladder and spent two and a half years as General Manager of The Bridewell, a theatre in the City. Having been lucky enough to have fulfilled many theatre ambitions, I decided I needed a change and a new career and this is where I started my journey with Foxtons. I had been into the Islington office on a previous flat search and the energy drew me in and is something that still keeps me excited about the people and the company today.
I started as a Sales Negotiator and after a few months I was lucky enough to move to a new role as a Tenancy Manager. This was a great fit for me as it is a practical, problem-solving role and having worked within a customer facing role running the theatre, it really suited my skill base. I thrived in this environment and was later promoted to a trainee Property Manager. I successfully completed my training programme and within a year I had moved from running a portfolio on my own to having a small team covering a large portfolio of properties across London. Over the next few years I was able to take on more teams, more offices and higher valuer properties and became more involved in the training and recruitment for the department.
In 2008 I was delighted to be given the opportunity to become Head of Non-Managed Properties, with a team of 20 people. It was great to have come full circle and be managing the team where I started. In 2010 I was also given the Client Accounts team to look after in addition to the Tenancy team. One of the exciting things about Foxtons is that it embraces change and technology and over the last two years we have developed new systems and processes to be able to successfully look after thousands of tenancies for our landlords and tenants. My team are generally new recruits and my greatest satisfaction is working with them to build their own careers. Every day is different and raises new challenges and the buzz of the property floor make the days go so fast.
