Jennifer knows how to pull things together

Feb 25 2008 by Graeme King, The Journal

Jennifer Welch is a Horden miner’s daughter, who served as a military policeman in Katmandhu. Graeme King meets the woman who is now at the top Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in the North.

IT HAS to be quite a challenge to represent surveyors in a world where most of society doesn’t really ‘get’ what they do.

As Jennifer Welch admits herself, most of us think of a surveyor as someone who turns up to measure and check the state of our house when we are looking at moving.

The operations director for the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in the North of England is not herself a surveyor so is in a good position to stand to one side and ‘sell’ the value of the profession without getting too caught up in the jargon and technical data that every profession drags around.

However, after 10 years in RICS, working her way up through several positions, Welch has gathered a substantial ‘chunk’ of knowledge about each of the facets which make up the profession – and is fluent in putting that forward.

It has been a winding road for Welch to get to the RICS seat she now occupies. Having grown up the daughter, and granddaughter, of miners in Horden, County Durham, Welch left school at 18 and plunged straight into a career in the Army.

Sitting in the lounge of the Vermont Hotel in Newcastle, she explains how she got where she is today.

“I went into basic Army training for six weeks, then I was into police training school to be a military policewoman.

“When I was deciding what I wanted to do in the pre-selection process, I fancied going into experimental gunnery (working on new weapons for the forces) but the lady I spoke to said it would involve spending my time in places like the Outer Hebrides and advised me against it.

“She told me I was a people person and should go into the military police. Maybe there were just vacancies in that section, I don’t know, but that’s what I did.

“She asked me how tall I was, and I said 5ft 3in, and you needed to be 5ft 4in to get in, so they ‘stretched’ me in the medical centre so I was passed through as 5ft 4in...”

So is the military police as it appears on television dramas, where they are seen as a breed apart from regular soldiers?

“Yes, very much. Your accommodation would always be separate, and you could not mix with the other soldiers.

“You could not be buddies one minute, then nicking them for something the next. There were even some units where you ate separately.”

Welch managed to see a bit of the world through her Army career – one of her original intentions on joining up. She spent quite a period in Cyprus, did a long tour in Northern Ireland when the troubles were still raging, and later ended up in Hong Kong.

On home soil she spent time in London, including being on security duty when major talks with Zimbabwe were happening at Lancaster House with the country’s leader Robert Mugabe in attendance, which she remembers – in what sounds like massive understatement – as “really interesting” with all the security required. After six years in the forces though, she decided to get out and got herself a job with newspaper distribution business John Menzies, working in training and development in Scotland, but then moved on when she married husband Steve (now a chef at Sir John Hall’s Wynyard Hall).

She says: “I left there as I had got married, and my husband was still in the Army, and there was me in Edinburgh and him in Germany.

“I picked up a job in the British Forces youth training scheme.”

The next move took Welch and her husband to Hong Kong, where her varied career this time saw her heading up security at the Joint Movements Unit, based at the old Kai Tak airport, working on security and evacuation plans. The role included flying to places like Kathmandu in Nepal on important military flights.

Eventually back home in the UK, Welch started working for a housing association in Hampshire, again in training and development.

“Then we decided that, with my husband having two years left to serve in the Army, we should get back up north.

“We wanted to spend time with the family, get my sons sorted in school, and look after my mother as my father died around that time.”

It was at this point, in 1998, that Welch’s career amongst surveyors got going.

“I answered a job advert in The Journal for these strange people at RICS, and thought ‘what do they do?’

“It was a part-time role, to be their branch administrator – supporting the members in some of the activities they were involved in. I put on training sessions for them, amongst other things.

“It did not stay part-time for long – it just grew and grew and grew.

“Having started off as branch administrator, I am now operations director for the whole of the North. If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would never have thought of this happening.”

Welch struggles to explain what she does day to day, as her diary is so varied, though she is clear about what it is she is tasked with achieving.

“My role is about selling. I sell what chartered surveyors do – promoting the profession constantly – promoting what it’s about. I know ‘that much’ (Welch indicates a small space between her thumb and forefinger) about ‘that much’ (she spreads her arms wide). I have to know a little bit about everything, to have an understanding of it.

“I was in a meeting recently where the chairman was an experienced commercial surveyor and a surveying issue came up which he did not know about, but he said ‘Jen will know’ as I have to understand a little about all aspects of the profession.”

Welch uses the analogy of conducting an orchestra where she can’t play the instruments, to describe the role she performs.

“In an orchestra, somebody plays sax, somebody else plays piano, others play their instruments, then one person is pulling it together.

“The person on sax maybe can’t play piano, the pianist can’t play sax, and the person bringing it together can’t do either, but can bring it all together.” The approach adopted by RICS to tackling land and property issues tends to be one of engagement with the various parties involved, not the ‘shouting from the rooftops’ sometimes witnessed by other lobbying bodies. Welch sees it as a strength of the organisation.

“What we do is lobby, constantly – on a national and local level. One of the things people say about RICS is that we don’t have as much about us in the press as we could do, and we are not as forthright as we could be.

“It’s often because we are saying ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bath water’. If you are being too objectionable, you cease to be able to keep the lines of communication open.

“That’s the kind of role we see ourselves performing, otherwise we are unable to consult, which is really quite important.”

“With HIPs (Home Information Packs) that was much the same. As a royal society, we invoke the rules of the royal charter – that we represent not just our members, but the general public. There, the consultation process had not taken place – and that’s why we took the action we did, in getting an injunction.

“One of our roles is to get our point across and lobby at government level. There are different ways of attracting attention.

So what about some of the current issues?

Here, Welch is very cautious in putting a view forward, as she says it is better for the expert members to speak, but she admits there have been some tough topics to tackle of late. So what about the HIPs?

“It’s fair to say it’s been very frustrating, and I think our members would agree with that – frustrating and costly.

“They had to set up systems, get staff training done.

“My personal view is that the Energy Performance Certificates can stand alone – they did not necessarily need the HIP.

“I would query whether the HIP ever needed to be in place.

“ The process was just not thought through well enough.”

Welch is a supporter of the Raising the Ratio campaign to get more women into the property business, but like everything else, she has a pretty pragmatic approach to it all.

She says: “In the field of surveying, we are not where we want to be (currently 15% of RICS members are women) but if you take a serious look around, you see an awful lot more women in the profession than five years ago, let alone 10 years ago.”

She says one major way to make a difference to the male/female ratio is to educate children about getting into surveying.

“We do an awful lot of work with careers and education – talking about what a chartered surveyor is; selling the profession.

“There are so many opportunities for women within chartered surveying. In the last 10 years, I have learnt so much about what surveyors do – some fascinating stuff you would not even imagine. What you see around you, whatever project, there’s always been a chartered surveyor there before you.

“The Gateshead Millennium Bridge going up, or whatever building being converted to a new use, or just a gantry with signs and lights on the A1 – a chartered surveyor will have been there working on it.

“When people think of a surveyor, they think of the person who values your house when you want to sell it. But we are working hard to explain more about what we do and actively encourage the female population to look at it as a profession. Do what’s good for you is my philosophy.”

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CV: Jennifer Welch

1978-1984 British Army – military policewoman

1984-1985 John Menzies – training and development

1985-1992 British Forces Germany youth training scheme

1992-1995 Joint Movements Unit, Hong Kong – responsible for security and evacuation plans for the military within the civil airport

1995-1998 Housing Association, Hampshire – head of training and development

1998-present RICS, operations director north

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The Questionnaire

What car do you drive?

A black BMW 330 convertible (with a personalised plate) – I’m very passionate about cars.

What’s your favourite restaurant?

I would say ‘Chez Steve’ as my husband is a chef, and I would rather eat at home, with him cooking for us, than go out.

Who or what makes you laugh?

My two teenage sons – they both have great senses of humour.

What’s your favourite book?

There’s no particular one, but I love crime novels. I am reading all Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels – and I read a lot of motivational business stuff too.

What's your favourite film?

Forrest (correct) Gump. What he says and does, I can relate to, and I love Tom Hanks. I really enjoyed Apollo 13 too.

What was the last album you bought?

Russell Watson – Outside In.

What’s your ideal job, other than your current one?

A personal shopper – not spending my own money, but shopping all day.

If you had a talking parrot, what’s the first thing you’d teach it to say?

"Keep smiling." If my boys have got difficult days ahead, I say that to them.

What’s your greatest fear?

Not achieving and being successful in what I set out to do.

What’s the best piece of business advice you have ever received?

Trust in your own judgment and do what you believe is right.

Worst business advice?

"Do nothing." Fortunately I never follow that, and on the occasion it was given, while what I did decide on was not great, it was better than doing nothing.

What’s your poison?

Red wine.

What newspaper do you read?

I read both The Journal and the Northern Echo for work, and I read the Telegraph too.

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?

I earned £3.50 for a Saturday job in a local shop. I’m sure my mum probably spent more on petrol taking me and fetching me, than I earned, but I wanted to do it.

How do you keep fit?

The gym. I have a personal trainer I see twice a week, and I tend to go early in the morning at 6.30am when it opens.

What’s your most irritating habit?

My sons tell me I nag them.

What’s your biggest extravagance?

Clothes – I shop as and when I feel the need. It’s my bit of R&R.

Which historical or fictional character do you most identify with/admire?

I admire Gandhi. I find him quite an inspirational figure for all sorts of reasons.

And which four famous people would you most like to dine with?

Richard Branson, as I have read a lot about him; Peter Kay as he makes me laugh so much; Billy Connolly, not only for his humour, but because the things he says make you think; and Gandhi again – I like to think of my guests, and I think Billy Connolly could have a fascinating conversation with him.

How would you like to be remembered?

Despite all the odds, she kept her sense of humour.