Budding billionaire
PUBLISHED : 08 Sep 2010 16:33:10 | Eloise Liddell
Day 2
After my first day working as an intern with Harry Triguboff I knew that I was one of the most fortunate people in Australia, and the week just kept getting better.
To start day two, we toured various serviced apartment blocks in the Sydney CBD. We spoke to the people on the front desks, the security guards, the property managers and gained some insight into how this aspect of the business affects Harry’s balance sheet. My fellow interns, Nick Carpenter, Kent Medwin, and I were taken into the apartments and to see how the floor plans worked, why certain materials were chosen, and learnt about what Meriton has picked up through trial and error over the years. We even found out how often they replaced the TVs.
We then headed back to the office and saw the Meriton Serviced Apartments call centre, complete with a screen tracking the status of incoming calls and how long people had been waiting online. I thought this was very cool!
We grabbed a coffee and were called into Harry’s office (over the PA system I mentioned yesterday). Harry said we’d be going with him to some of the sites still under construction, which meant squeezing in alongside him - he may be a billionaire but he personally drives to our to construction sites every morning to check on his projects.
We were about to see how much energy this 78 year old has.
We popped into a dark van and battled the Sydney traffic to make our way to North Sydney and St Ives. On site Harry is in his element - we were all chasing him around. He knew how to get everywhere, when to turn, what to look for, and who to speak to. He personally spoke to the site personnel to see how they were going and find out how much to pay contractors.
After a few hours on site and another photo shoot in one of the completed units, we made our way back to the office, taking minor detours so Harry could tell us about individual projects he’d built over the years as we drove back to the CBD.
It seems everywhere we go, there are stamps of Harry and the Meriton construction empire.
We then went out to lunch with the serviced apartments team. I felt like I was walking into a movie.
After lunch we sat down with one of the engineers to learn about the building methodologies Meriton uses and how they fit into the big picture.
After a spending some time with Harry and attending a few meetings, we heard rumours we’d be flying to Queensland for the day... in a private jet. This is going to be very exciting, we’re going to see how real billionaires roll!
BRW
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