Data-Driven Work Cultures: Rob Finlay of Thirty Capital On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level
An Interview With Pierre Brunelle
As an organization, you have to believe in the importance of data. — You need someone on your team or a third party to get your team excited about the potential growth through data management.
As part of our series about “How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rob Finlay, CEO and Founder of Thirty Capital.
Rob Finlay, CEO and Founder of Thirty Capital, has spent more than two decades bridging the gap between innovation and technology to push the boundaries of commercial real estate. He’s built a portfolio of commercial real estate assets, a financial advisory and services firm, and 10 technology platforms that open up access to data management and insight generation tools previously available only to institutional and enterprise operators. He actively invests in his communities and mentors emerging leaders.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I got my start on Wall Street in the late 1990s and converted that into a business that helped commercial real estate owners through the defeasance process. For the past 22 years, I’ve been building services and solutions to support innovation within the commercial real estate industry.
So, I’ve got three, perhaps four lives. One is commercial real estate; two is the capital markets focusing on derivatives and defeasance; and the third is software — building up technology companies, primarily Lobby CRE and Entity Keeper, to support commercial real estate operators. And then finally, I’ve been active recently in decentralized finance, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
There are many funny stories here. One that stands out was the first time we advertised in Commercial Mortgage Alert. We took a bunch of our money and put it in an ad in this very targeted trade publication. They asked my marketing team to do it, but I didn’t have one at that point.
So, in Word, we created our logo and slogan all at once — “Defease With Ease” — and it has stuck with us since. You have to ask questions, be more prepared, and continuously learn when you start a business.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
“Who Moved My Cheese” is one of the most profound books for entrepreneurs. Even though it’s simple and easy to read, it is about change and taking the time to make sure people understand what you’re doing. It also focuses on how to embrace change. I gave that book to my senior leaders when I came back to Commercial Defeasance in 2011.
Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
Yes, we’re working on Lobby CRE. Lobby CRE is a game-changer in commercial real estate by helping investors and operators manage their portfolios and utilize data and analytics to make data-driven decisions.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about empowering organizations to be more “data-driven.” My work centers on the value of data visualization and data collaboration at all levels of an organization. So I’m particularly interested in this topic. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly it means to be data-driven? On a practical level, what does it look like to use data to make decisions?
Being ‘data-driven’ means leveraging data to inform your decision-making processes. But what ‘data’ is can be somewhat vague. Data is just information — what’s important is how we collect and interpret it. Data-driven decisions are those for which you’re looking for processes and assets with data associated with them and then leveraging the numbers and information to formulate strategic actions.
On a practical level, it’s determining which data sources you’ll use to make decisions and then looking at the data from different perspectives. It’s where the art of data analysis comes in.
Which companies can most benefit from tools that empower data collaboration?
All companies can benefit from tools that empower data collaboration, but it’s especially true in real estate as much of what we do is quantitative in nature and team-oriented. It’s about using critical data to break down silos within the organization so the various internal and external teams are unified, leading to the prompt attainment of OKRs, and enhanced cross-functional support, rapport, and creativity.
We’d love to hear about your experiences using data to drive decisions. In your experience, how has data analytics and data collaboration helped improve operations, processes, and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.
Without quality data and accessible tools, it’s impossible to know where we stand in almost all aspects of our operations and relations with investors, clients, and tenants. Even where we don’t measure quantitatively, there is data that reveals essential factors that are crucial to providing value and an excellent experience to our external stakeholders.
When you have the systems and data that enable your teams to collaborate seamlessly, it improves the speed with which you can adapt and capitalize on the current environment and the resources you have available today.
We’ve seen many of our clients leverage data to operate more efficiently, identify ideal acquisition opportunities, improve reporting to investors, and craft spaces and leases that better suit tenant and operator needs.
Has the shift towards becoming more data-driven been challenging for some teams or organizations from your vantage point? What are the challenges? How can organizations solve these challenges?
People like doing things the way they always have and prefer to keep it that way — that’s just human nature. Even if data is available, people tend to doubt and challenge it. That’s part of the reason that diligent data collection and analysis are so vital. We have to make as strong a case to our internal stakeholders as we do with external parties to earn their buy-in to a data-driven approach.
Teaming up with those who have experience in data management facilitates implementation and lends credibility to the initiative in team members’ eyes.
Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Effectively Leverage Data to Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.
- As an organization, you have to believe in the importance of data.
- You need someone on your team or a third party to get your team excited about the potential growth through data management. - You have to be able to procure the data.
- This is where software and automated solutions are indispensable.
- While this can and has been done manually, it’s not practical for most operators today. - The data must be clean, standardized, and useful.
- The pairing of software and skilled analysts ensures quality inputs. - A mechanism is needed to review and look at that data.
- Again, software and talented analysts go hand-in-hand to efficiently evaluate the data and extract the latent knowledge that fuels decision-making. - Sharing and presenting the results and findings.
- This could be through visualization, analytics, or correlations.
- It involves interpreting and understanding the results, and then effectively sharing them to your team and stakeholders.
The name of this series is “Data-Driven Work Cultures”. Changing a culture is hard. What would you suggest is needed to change a work culture to become more Data Driven?
For work cultures to become more data-driven, they need access to the tools and their data.
They also need access to the results to understand how their actions can change those outcomes.
We’ve adopted OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to facilitate this process in our organization.
This constant feedback loop enables companies to be aware of and change their culture to become more data-oriented.
The future of work has recently become very fluid. Based on your experience, how do you think the needs for data will evolve and change over the next five years?
It’s not that the need will change, but the amount of data and how we’ll tackle it will. The volume of data that organizations and the industry have aggregated over the last ten year has exploded — reaching a practically unmanageable scope. But it’s easy to earn adoption once people understand and see the benefits of data and how to manage it. Ultimately, their desire to have more data and data sources becomes greater.
Does your organization have any exciting goals for the near future? What challenges will you need to tackle to reach them? How do you think data analytics can best help you?
Yes, we set our goals and objectives as an organization for the coming years. We utilize data and analytics to monitor and ensure we’re on target to reach those goals. Data comes into play because the information provides a constant feedback loop. It’s one thing to say what we’re going to do this year and another thing to track precisely how we will do it.
How can our readers further follow your work?
Visit my websites at RobFinlay.com and ThirtyCapital.com. You can also catch my weekly Capital Markets Report Podcast in which my team of traders reports their on-the-ground observations and predictions for the treasury markets. Also, watch for my upcoming book, “Around the Corner,” which will address what the tech-driven future holds for CRE operators and investors — and how to embrace it. I’m also active on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About The Interviewer: Pierre Brunelle is co-CEO and Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Noteable, the collaborative notebook platform that enables teams to use and visualize data, together. Prior to Noteable, Brunelle led Amazon’s internal and SageMaker notebook initiatives. Pierre holds an MS in Building Engineering and an MRes in Decision Sciences and Risk Management.
