It’s been quite a year for the Building Engines team following our latest infusion of capital investment in October 2016.

This year, we introduced new mobile innovations with an enhanced mobile tenant services app, The Hive, unveiled the characteristics of high-performing CRE organizations in the industry’s first CRE operations benchmarking research, hosted our community of CRE professionals at the annual TRANSFORM Property Management Summit, launched the third annual Property Hero Awards, and have made a number of leadership announcements to support our continued growth.

As part of these planned executive appointments, Building Engines announced an exciting update last week to our executive leadership team.

We welcomed current board member and company advisor Tim Curran as our new Chief Executive Officer.

Company founder, David Osborn, who has led our team since 2001 as CEO will remain as Board Chairman.

While Tim has already been a highly influential part of Building Engines’ as an advisor and board member, we wanted to give our community an opportunity to get to know him a bit better. We recently sat down with Tim to discuss his background, his outlook, and what the future holds for our fast-growing organization.

1. Tell us about the journey you’ve taken to this point in SaaS and Real Estate Technology 

My journey actually started as a developer almost 30 years ago. It was pre-SaaS but it gave me an appreciation for what it takes to develop high quality software applications.  My real estate tech experience spans from construction projects and quality management to energy management and real estate operations.

I’ve always been in vertical software markets my whole career with most of my experience in the Real Estate tech vertical. I got lucky in that I was able to experience a range of disciplines in my career through software design, project management, product management, business development, and sales and marketing leadership roles.

This experience gave me a solid foundation upon which to move into the role of CEO. I’ve since led three SaaS software companies as CEO over the past 20 years with Building Engines being the fourth.

2. What are some of the biggest changes you’re seeing today in the CRE industry?  

Like most industries, the speed of change is increasing in CRE. At the same time, tenants are demanding an experience that meets higher and higher level of quality standards from owners and operators. This is in part driven by the “WeWork phenomena” but is more broadly an indication of how customer expectations have changed across every vertical. Today’s building operator must demonstrate, speed, innovation and seek to delight tenants in order to win and retain their loyalty. 

3. What are you most excited about for Building Engines’ future?

The changes taking place in CRE are core to our plans for Building Engines as we continue to create products designed to ensure operators keep pace with that change, and delight tenants. Our mission from day 1 was to provide commercial properties with tools and capabilities to deliver an exceptional customer experience for their tenants – and that mission has not changed.

Our best products are yet to come, as we gear up to release brand new capabilities through our building operations software, focused on measuring and increasing tenant sentiment. While we’ve been a leader in SaaS and mobile capabilities for Commercial Real Estate, our innovation team is also exploring the impact of exciting new technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. We’re committed to finding the most reliable, and most effective methods to effect building operations and tenant satisfaction in measurably better ways.

4. What values are important to you as a leader?

Number one is a focus on delighting our customers. I’ve learned that if you focus on delivering customer value and satisfaction, everything else takes care of itself. I also believe that trust, integrity and transparency are the only ways to do business. Long-term, honest and trusting relationships have delivered us hundreds of customers, thousands of buildings and billions of square feet, and are the foundation of what has made Building Engines the success it is to-date.

5. What’s one thing not many people know about you? 

I love travelling to new cities and countries with a long-term goal of visiting 100 countries. I’m up to about 40 so far. At one point I was travelling so much for business that I filled up an entire passport book in 14 months!

Welcome to the team, Tim.

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