Introducing the Head Chef at home and the Head of Commercial at the office, Daniel Brown.

Daniel joined us only a couple of years ago and he’s already added so much value to us as a company and to the teams he manages. With a can-do attitude and high level of professionalism, we could not be happier to have Daniel head up our commercial division.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to join COEL?

My background is in construction management, which is what I have a degree in. Once I finished university, I started working in a graduate role at a residential house builder in Essex. After working there for about 8 years, the opportunity to come to COEL arose. As this would involve changing sectors, I jumped at the opportunity.

The opportunity to move into the commercial sector really appealed to me as not only do the projects tend to be shorter, but the work COEL does meant that I would be able to work on varied projects. So, I took the opportunity and I’m delighted to be part of the COEL team.

How did you find the transition from the residential to the commercial industry?

I haven’t felt too big of a transition, this is partly because I joined COEL as a Quantity Surveyor (QS) and so the skills are fairly transferable. One of the main differences between working on commercial versus residential projects is that you get to work with various clients, which I really like.

In the commercial sector, I get to work with different clients, who have different briefs and requirements, adding a degree of variability and change to my role. Whereas in the residential you might work with the same client or on the same project for two to three years. On the commercial side, we normally deliver a project and start a new one every few months.

What does a typical day look like?

A typical day for me starts quite early, as I like to get ahead of the curve. I start by catching up on emails and delegating any actions that might have come in overnight or might be urgent to ensure any issues are addressed as early on in the day as possible.

Once I have cleared the decks a little bit, I then look ahead at what’s coming up in the week in terms of projects and ensure everyone on my team is clear on the course of action. This is also when I will check in with my team and see how I can best support them.

One of my main responsibilities as head of the department is internal reporting, so a lot of my time is spent on this. I report on a number of different aspects, such as the overall financial performance of all onsite projects. I create these to keep our board of directors updated on a weekly basis, this allows any issues or potential issues to be mitigated before they cause disruptions on site. However, the main reason this is so important is it provides a high degree of visibility into the financial performance of projects, which is important not only to us but to our clients as well.

Did you always want to work in construction?

Funnily enough no, I didn’t always want to work in construction.

After college, I was thinking of becoming an accountant – which shows I’ve always had an interest in the financial side of things.

Ultimately, however, my dad convinced me to go into construction. He was in the construction industry himself and showed me the many benefits of working in this industry, so I ended up going down the construction management route at university.

And I have to say that I’m quite pleased with my decision, as I’ve had a great career so far, going graduate all the way to head of department.

What’s your favourite thing about COEL?

Definitely how friendly the people are – everyone in the office and onsite is so easy to get along with.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I’m newly married so there is a lot to do there in terms of setting up our lives, which is great. Outside of that, I’m a big football fan, I actually played all my life, though not so much these days as golf has slowly taken over my spare time.