Tim Robinson, Head of Commercial at Knight Frank - 32 Years of Results Lead to the Job of a Lifetime

Tim Robinson joined Knight Frank as a graduate and has spent the whole of his 32-year career there, becoming an equity partner in 2008 and Head of Commercial in 2025. In April, he takes over as UK Managing Partner from Stephen Clifton, a role that will bring the firm's residential and commercial businesses together under one leader for the first time. His path started a long way from property. His father was an army colonel who wanted him to follow the same route, and Tim grew up moving between postings before boarding at Harrow from the age of six. He went into real estate instead, working his way up through agency roles at Knight Frank before taking on the property management, valuation, planning, business rates and building consultancy divisions in turn. He's candid about the timing of the new role. He'd assumed Head of Commercial would be his job until 60, and had committed to it fully, before Stephen Clifton told him a year in that he planned to leave and asked if Tim wanted to put himself forward. Taking over means running a residential business for the first time in his career, and merging two divisions that have operated largely independently to avoid duplicated costs and missed opportunities for clients. He also talks through how the partnership actually works, from the profit-sharing model to how someone becomes an equity partner, and where he'd allocate £500m of capital if he had it today, split across new talent, rural real estate and infrastructure. What guests would you love to see next on PPP? Let us know in the comments. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Art Capital & Yardi. For more on Yardi, head to: https://hubs.li/Q04wHxlH0 For more on Art Capital, head to: www.art-capital.co.uk/ LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/