JLL CEO Stephen Conry looks back on his 40-year career in commercial property

Stephen Conry looks back on his 40-year career as head of JLL and what he will do when he returns from a long holiday.

JLL Australia outgoing CEO Stephen Conry in Brisbane.

COMMERCIAL property is essentially a numbers game. And for Stephen Conry, AM, the numbers seemed right to retire.

JLL Australia and New Zealand chief executive’s 40-year career in property and four decades with the world’s largest commercial property company will end on June 30.

“It just feels right. Forty years is a long innings and 13 years as chief executive has been another long innings and great honour as well,” he said.

“Being a CEO based in Brisbane meant travelling every week for 13 years and before that I was in a national role and was travelling every second week. So I’m looking forward to taking stock, having a holiday and not having to deal with hundreds of emails every day.”

With his three children now pursuing their own careers Mr Conry and wife Samantha are looking forward to a long holiday before focusing on his post JLL career when he returns.

“I’m not going to retire and sit on a beach but I am scaling back from a full time corporate role,” he said.

“Certainly I see the opportunity to invest in property. I think if I had invested directly in property or be a developer when I was with JLL it would have put me in potential conflict with clients and I would never have done that. It's unethical.”

JLL Australia CEO Stephen Conry who will officially retire on June 30.

Mr Conry, 57, joined the venerable Jones Lang Wootton as a trainee valuer in 1982, worked his way up to become a director in 1989, and at the age of 24 he was the youngest in the worldwide company in that role.

He was appointed managing director for Queensland in 1996 and has served in various national leadership roles in what became Jones Lang LaSalle before he was named the company’s Australian chief executive in 2009 in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis.

“The GFC was tough, very tough and I was a new CEO and a new CEO changes directions. Times were tough and I had to review staff numbers and cut salaries to resize the business,” Mr Conry said.

“I am a big believer that a leader has to have courage and conviction, and commitment and a collegiate approach. Those four things have underpinned what I think a leader should be. It can be scary and it can be lonely but you have to stick to your convictions.”

Another major hiccup was the Covid-19 pandemic which stopped in its tracks a string of JLL Australian annual growth records in 2020.

However, Mr Conry – who at the same time also tackled the pandemic in a wider sphere as national president of the Property Council of Australia – said “we held our nerve” and did not cut staff.

Since 2009 JLL staff has grown from 1000 to 4000 across the country with the commercial property industry offering a variety of services which were not even hinted at in 1982 when Mr Conry started doing deals.

Aerial view of Brisbane CBD in 1995.

A hater of static workplace organisational charts, Mr Conry said the one constant in business is change. Change in the way businesses have to adapt to economic and political circumstances and global trends.

“That’s what makes it interesting and indeed very fulfilling. You have to not only adapt to change, try and predict change and try and lead it. You have to be available to colleagues and clients all the time,” he said.

The Gregory Terrace old boy admits he always had a fascination with property and the story of him at the beach as a child creating skyscrapers in the sand while others were making sandcastles does ring true.

While the commercial property industry has a tradition of sons and daughters following in their family’s footsteps Mr Conry’s father was the Queensland manager of CSL and his brother and three sisters were not in the property game.

However, the young boy would finish school and go down to the Brisbane CBD to watch the workers going about their business on building sites.

“That’s one of the great joys of my role, participating in the development of the CBD skyline as a consultant or a leasing agent,” Mr Conry said.

“It’s good to see your early recommendations about developments then go on and have success. There’s no doubt the development in Brisbane of Central Plaza 1, 2 and 3 which I was involved in helping colleagues when I was 21 was very pleasing.

“What you help create is there forever and you see a skyscraper there and its exciting, and you have to get it right.”