Charter for THE FUTURE

AS AN INTEGRATED PROPERTY GROUP, CHARTER HALL HAS VISIBILITY TO MOST PROPERTY DEALS. MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CEO DAVID HARRISON TALKS ABOUT MARKET DIFFERENTIATION, THE IMPORTANCE OF A CUSTOMER-CENTRIC ETHOS, AND HIS SECRETS TO CONSISTENTLY DELIVERING.

- LISA SCHOFIELD

Flipping a burned-down house isn’t a normal pastime for a teenager, but for David Harrison, Managing Director and CEO of Charter Hall Group, his career path was never going to be ‘normal’. In fact, sharing a project like this with his dad was simply a natural progression from a childhood spent manning open days and site visits for his parents’ real estate developments.

Real estate is in David’s blood, and it comes as no surprise he’s made a successful career out of it, with astute leadership and strategic direction playing a significant role in the success that Charter Hall Group enjoys today.

Charter Hall has a finger in almost every property-related pie, and operates across property funds management, development, property investment banking, property management and property investment.

With just under A$40 billion in assets under management, consistently delivering outperformance is a hallmark of the company, and there is nothing serendipitous about this. Charter Hall has rewritten the game plan on property investment and funds management, and in doing so has offered confidence to both institutional and ‘mum-and-dad’ investors.

GRASSROOTS BEGINNINGS

In what he describes as a “real estate family”, David’s parents were both real estate developers and auctioneers in Nabiac on the North Coast of New South Wales. It wasn’t unusual for David to be working at the sales sites or learning how to be an auctioneer. “Dad gave me the chance to do some small property deals when I was a teen,” he remembers fondly. “I got a taste for real estate early.”