David Peters, Proprietary Partner, Head of Residential Valuation and Consultancy
I joined Knight Frank in April 1998, having previously qualified with a small private
practice in Surrey and then having worked with the Hamptons group, running their
surveying team in the country. When I joined, Knight Frank was a sea of change in
terms of work ethic, quality and opportunity.
My role was to develop a team of surveyors to carry out valuations on residential
property for a range of purposes. When I began, the team only had a single job.
However, the Knight Frank brand is a strong tool and we were soon expanding the
team to its current level of 23 surveyors around the country, to include Scotland.
As the team expanded and our profits became more consistent and sizeable, I was
asked to join the Partnership as a Proprietary Partner.
During my career at Knight Frank, I have had the opportunity to start a Residential
Institutional team, a separate European valuation team as well as being the chair
of a cross divisional Banking Committee for valuers.
Our Residential Graduate scheme, which I now oversee, allows a department to sponsor
a graduate for a rotational period. This allows them to gain experience in a range
of professional teams and ensures that they have a broad understanding of the property
world and in particular, all aspects of the residential market.
We place huge amounts of emphasis on understanding our graduates long term career
aspirations and rotate them in departments appropriate to their interests and skill
sets.
The departmental and subject training is augmented by training seminars and courses
for all graduates, covering areas such as negotiating skills and team building.
These ensure that the graduates have an opportunity to share their experiences and
continue to develop their team ethic which is so important to the culture at Knight
Frank.
Knight Frank offers huge opportunity to those graduates with an appetite for success
and one of the most rewarding aspects is to see how those individuals prosper
over the next ten years of their careers.