Cover story: Country manager of Property Finder on why Dubai is a pioneer in real estate

Cover story: Country manager of Property Finder on why Dubai is a pioneer in real estate

For an executive to share his vision for a company two months in (the company and the city), may be nothing short of a tall ask. But for Scott Bond – the newly hired country manager for Dubai-based real estate portal Property Finder – it seemed refreshingly easy. His vision, however, is crisp, measurable and future-ready. It’s understandable why. Bond comes with a resounding sales background, having been a sales leader for the better part of two decades. “My whole career has been [spent] leading sales teams. In 2016, I joined the US-based real estate portal Zillow Group as a general manager leading the in-house sales team and was subsequently asked to take on a bigger role, managing two regions henceforth. Two years in, I was asked to build a sales team for a programme ‘Zillow Offers’ from the ground up. In a couple of years, we had a 400- person crew, operating from six offices across the country. We were buying and selling homes across 25 markets,” reminisces Bond. The decision to move halfway across the world to join Property Finder in becoming a pure-play, customer-centric firm was largely a reflective one. “The reason I chose this job was