Name: Debra Donahoe
Position: Broking Executive
Company: Builder Brokers
What do you enjoy the most, working in the field of Construction & Development?
The diversity available across the industry to grow and learn. I have been lucky enough to work with companies that strongly encourage you to step outside your role and experience other departments and teams. This provided me with the opportunity to be hands-on in multiple areas of the development life cycle while working alongside some extremely inspiring people.
Where do you see life in the next 5 years, what possibilities are ahead of you?
I am currently in the process of developing my business with a long-term plan to bring in my children to my team. I have a daughter who is just about to finish a marketing/business degree and my boys are already involved behind the scenes with the technical aspects and are keen to step into face-to-face roles shortly. The building broking concept is relatively new and the opportunities within the industry are extremely exciting as I am working with a larger team of industry leaders with the same goal of delivering high-end service to save clients time and money. We are forging new ground and the ability to be able to see the vision come to life with my extremely talented family involved is a dream come true.
If you could write a letter to a 13-year-old ‘you’ what would you say?
Everything you are going through now is going to make you a strong independent person and a great mum (yes, I know you say you will never have kids but you do and they will be the most amazing humans you ever meet). Kindness always – it makes you feel amazing and brings the best people and experiences into your life, always fight for what you know is right even if you’re scared to not be following the crowd. Don’t be so hard on your mum, she is fighting her own battles and is doing the absolute best she can – you guys are going to be best friends one day (crazy hey!). Yes, your 3 part-time jobs suck but you are learning more here than you probably ever will at school (classrooms will never be your thing but people are) and this is where you will start to see you have a lot more to offer than you could ever see before. Chin up! It gets awesome, I promise. xx
What are 3 skills you have had to develop to get to where you are presently?
- Time management – I am guilty of doing too many things at once and not utilising my time effectively, so learning how to stop and break projects into levels of urgency has been a huge learning curve for me and has completely changed the way I work for the better.
- I have worked with all types of people from all types of backgrounds since I first started working in my very early teens – I have always been fascinated with human behaviour and psychology and have studied in this area, so I know how important it is to be able to be adapt your own behaviour in certain circumstances to make other people feel at ease and understood. I am lucky that it comes very naturally to me and I know it has been a major factor in my career successes.
- Understanding that you cannot do absolutely everything and utilising the skill set and experience of your wider team and offering the same in return is where the magic happens.
