Nothing predisposed Thierry Laroue-Pont to pursue a career in real estate, let alone the profession of broker.
Not his education. Not his universe. Originally from Dijon but itinerant in fact, he is easily defined as “a pure product of the countryside, a pure Burgundian”, far removed from the stereotypes of the Parisian real estate agent who swarms social evenings. His mother, learning of his professional choice, even retorted to him one day: “It's because we have fallen very low.” The anecdote still makes him laugh out loud.
His father, a Russian teacher and an assertive communist, changed towns about every two years. The small family follows. “For a long time, my best friends were the sons of soldiers,” he recalls, with a sense of humor that he doesn't let go of. Grandson and son of teachers, the young boy grew up in a modest environment, mixed with French meritocrity. An environment where, at home, the bust of Lenin was still enthroned. Unsurprisingly, Thierry Laroue-Pont is a very good student, the first of them. “A hard-working person beyond reason”, he defines, “not to be confused with a worker”, underlines this lover of the right words. “I was anxious about the grade. I was putting pressure on myself,” he recalls. The method pays off since after his high school diploma in 1980 (Latin and Greek option!) , he is destined for a career in the public service, in line with his ancestors.
After Sciences Po in Lyon in 1983, the young man could have tried ENA. “But I felt that it was going to take time,” he admits. And time, he has quite little time. Since the death of his father in the year of his tenth birthday, times have been tough at home. He therefore went on to master's degree in law and political science and graduate school. “Finances were very tight. I really had to start working,” he recalls. “That's the way it is”...
First job, first stroke of fate: the Quai d'Orsay. The young man, who studied at the 120th Fontainebleau Regiment, was spotted by an official who spoke the same language to him: “You did Sciences Po. You speak English, German and Russian. You are not under pressure. You're going to be a very good element.” All that is needed to convince Thierry Laroue-Pont who is working hard. In ten months, he learned ten years of Parisian habits and customs. And gets a taste for it. Provincial by birth, he will be Parisian by adoption. The delicacy of this environment seduced him. He found a stronghold. All that remains is to find the vocation...
Premiers pas chez Jones Lang Wootton
1987: First interview in real estate. He still remembers it. Thierry Laroue-Pont is a man who knows how to listen to sound advice. This time, he will follow those of a well-inspired headhunter who advises him to try this path and names him Jones Lang Wootton. Young graduates, who are also multilingual, are rare there. The opportunities are great for those who know how to be a little imaginative.
Received by Robert Waterland, Thierry Laroue-Pont will, for this test run, also have to pass under the tough forks of Jean-Jacques Bertrand and Janet Stewart-Goatley. The young graduate has good memories of this amazing trio. The first assigned him to the QCA because he thought he had nice costumes. The second asks him what his relationship is with money. Question to which the candidate answers tit-for-tat: “None but thanks to you, I hope that this will change”. Moreover, he remains convinced that this is a bit why he was hired. As for the third, she is his godmother. She taught him the broker method of the 1980s: “A directory, a table and a telephone”.
Like all good students, Thierry Laroue-Pont quickly, very quickly learned a profession on the verge of his fame. In commercial real estate, he meets endearing personalities, meets a few English people, “real estate leaders” such as Howard Ronson, Paul Raingold or Miles d'Arcy Irvine, Philippe Camus and Laurel Bellier. He did not forget that he participated in the successful marketing of major projects: River Defense, River Plaza, West Defense with HRO, Stadium, Crystal Defense and the “Apotheosis” Crystal Park with GCI. His glory years...
Once again, Thierry Laroue-Pont enjoys crossing borders, taking a step outside the QCA, looking a little further away. It was this curiosity coupled with a great sense of service provided to the customer that took him to La Madeleine where he won the marketing of Les Trois Quartiers, then to Square Edouard VII, which is being rebuilt. The operation was a success. It ends with the sale to an SFL led by Yves Defline and Olivier Wigniolle. This last operation was decisive in his career. She definitely gives him his stripes as a broker, in the noble sense of the word. “Edward VII kind of pulled me out of the closet at Jones Lang Wooton”, he says. In any case, it makes it very visible to the market. That's when the quadra meets Guillaume Poitrinal's teams at Unibail. The Coeur Défense saga, the Capital 8 adventure, the restructuring of Cnit and now So-Ouest in Levallois: Thierry Laroue-Pont is a faithful man. “It is a capital virtue for me. In this environment, it takes years to build a reputation and between 3 to 6 months to destroy it,” he summarizes.
At 40, Jones Lang's No. 3, now LaSalle, is one of the few key players in rental transactions in Paris. In 2004, the results of commercial real estate consultancy were very good. This is the moment that Thierry Laroue-Pont chose to leave JLL after 17 years of good and loyal service. “If I don't do it at 40, I would never do it,” he decided not without hesitation. There are two reasons for this choice: “I had the feeling that I was no longer renewing myself in the company and I met Philippe Zivkovic”, he lists.
L’aventure BNP Paribas Real Estate
The first meeting with the boss of BNP Paribas Real Estate in a bar in a Parisian grand hotel is quite... original. Thierry Laroue-Pont is even convinced that it is not going very well. “I think I am very bad at career management. Above all, I'm not really interested in it,” he confesses. On the other hand, he is amazed by “the industrial project” that the No. 1 real estate company at BNP Paribas is developing.
Encouraged by his own people, he therefore won, after three incompressible months of “garden leave”, the ranks of the first integrated real estate operators. Propelled boss of the offices and sales division of Atisreal, recently acquired, he and the negotiators engaged in a six-month observation round. “The transfer of imported parts has always been complicated at Auguste-Thouard”, confides the broker. The beginnings were not idyllic but the new boss of office transactions at BNP Paribas Real Estate is holding on. He is supported by his hierarchy who does not hesitate to push him.
Result: six months later, he set up his office at the end of the stage, opposite the elevators, on Rue Jacques Ibert in Levallois. “From there, I could thus see the 150 employees of the transaction division living who could also come and see me”, he resolves. In 2007, without having asked anything, Thierry Laroue-Pont was appointed Vice President of BNP Paribas Real Estate Transaction, Expertise, Consulting. He will work in tandem with Max Le Roux. A management method made in Auguste-Thouard that BNP Paribas Real Estate has retained. Today, Thierry Laroue-Pont is teaming up with Laurent Boucher. “Together, we are smarter than alone,” he says.
“We are always reluctant to change. I don't like tickling my comfort zone too much,” he intellectualizes. Unsparing, however, for his “comfort zone”, Max Le Roux, its president, is almost forcibly moving his office. “He was right”, admits the strong man in the transaction today. The unnatural specialist in Parisian offices is taking the lead in the regions of BNP Paribas Real Estate Transaction, Expertise, and Consulting at the regional level in which he is. It also comes up against worlds other than that of the agency and invests in the field of investment, logistics, activity, and expertise. He finally developed a passion for the real estate strategy of users. Even for a man who is not very concerned about his “career management”, the trajectory is good and all in all quite fast. The change in scale is also obvious. Mono-product - the office in Ile-de-France - and responsible for leading a team of 60 people, Thierry Laroue-Pont is the leader of some 500 employees out of the 1500 employees of BNP Paribas Real Estate, 23 establishments, three businesses (Transaction, Expertise, Advice). Who says better?
Profession broker
This flawless course could have diverted the man from brokerage. That is not the case. More than ever, it is defined as advice with an absolute sense of customer loyalty, a passion for the product, and a great deal of proximity to users. “I cannot imagine a week without appointments with two or three major customers”, reveals this man whose working day starts at 7:30am — “probably because I am an insomnia sufferer” -, continues with a user pitch and an alternation of internal and external appointments.
Like his boss, Thierry Laroue-Pont has always been a workaholic. For six years at BNP Paribas Real Estate, he admits that he has never been bored for a moment. According to the heads that pass constantly in his office and the appointments that require him, one would be tempted to believe it. In any case, his figures speak for himself: BNP Paribas Real Estate, which achieved a turnover of €618 million (up 17%) in 2010, stands out as the No. 1 brokerage in Ile-de-France with an overwhelming market share of 37%, the No. 1 or 2 in expertise with 38,000 areas of expertise per year, a market share of 20% in investment and 30 to 40% in logistics in Ile-de-France France. The BNP Paribas Real Estate machine is relentless.
What challenges are there still for a No. 1? Thierry Laroue-Pont has already thought about it: “Attracting young talent, keeping the best among us (our turnover is less than 5%), questioning ourselves”. These topics certainly feed into the bi-monthly meetings organized with Philippe Zivkovic. “Very detailed meetings on business and figures. A solicitation on all subjects”, adds the one who defines himself, like his boss, available 24 hours a day for customers and employees.
In six years, Thierry Laroue-Pont did not fail to leave his mark on the house. At the beginning of 2011, propelled him to head the Transaction, Expertise and Regions division, the young quinqua got the teams moving. He has already promoted fifteen people, recruited around thirty new heads, and built bridges between BNP Paribas Real Estate's various real estate businesses. The road is not over for this broker who discovered himself a manager.
“Brokerage has not yet finished its revolution. On the user side, the level of requirement is such that we are now in contact with the three brains of a company: the managing director, the financial director and the HR manager. On the feminization side, there is still some grain to be ground in the profession. Our executive committee — composed of 4 women and 6 men — is becoming feminine. There is now a great deal of effort to be made on all business lines,” he argues.
He is passionate about the evolution of the broker profession — “a hard job because it is very cyclical, with brutal and short cycles”. He would even forget the clock ticking and the appointments that follow one another at the other end of the ring road. At 50, the No. 1 at BNP Paribas Real Estate Transaction, Expertise and Advice still refuses to take any career path. “What I want is not to be bored on a daily basis, to have fun on a Sunday evening, and to meet a variety of personalities,” he imagines.
Two major brokerage companies, 25 years of good and loyal services, the number 1 position of the leading commercial real estate consultancy in France: for someone who does not like career management, the result is astonishing. Like this man who, unlike his contemporaries, hates golf and hunting, has a keen sense of friendship, loves to wander for hours at the Cité de l'Architecture, the Moma or the Tate Modern with his 14-year-old daughter. “To career management, I prefer managing balances”. All in finesse...
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