Ivanhoe Cambridge

Sector: Retail Management
Company: Ivanhoe Cambridge
Name of Interviewee:
Lorna Park

Title: General Manager

Ivanhoe Cambridge

Ivanhoe Cambridge is a global property owner, manager, developer and investor specializing in shopping center developments. With properties worldwide (both wholly and partly owned) the company is involved in some of the most lucrative shopping centers in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.[1] See http://www.ivanhoecambridge.com/en-CA/HomePage/index.aspx#/en-CA/Shopping/ShoppingCentresWebsites for a list of their properties. In Victoria, Ivanhoe Cambridge owns and operates Mayfair Shopping Centre, located at 3147 Douglas Street. The services Ivanhoe Cambridge offers in this location include general management, accounts, marketing, maintenance, and customer service.

Lorna’s Career Path

Meet Lorna Park, General Manager at Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria, BC. Lorna had an unusual start for a business sector employee—after attending the University of Calgary in the Department of Education, she left for Montreal to pursue a dancing career. Tired of being a starving student (I know we can all identify with this!) Lorna later returned to Calgary to earn some money working as a floor coordinator for an oil company. One of her duties in this position was to coordinate the access cards on her floor, which interestingly enough led her to her next career move. As she learned more about the company that provided the cards, Oxford Development Group, she decided it was much more appealing to her than her current job, and asked about positions available there. Soon she was working doing move-in coordination for Oxford Development Group (a competitor of Ivanhoe Cambridge).

While working at the Oxford Development Group, Lorna continued to follow her passions, and would help the marketing director with projects she was interested in. Because of this initiative and hard work, she eventually promoted to building manager in the management centre. At the age of 23 (!!!), she left Oxford to be the General Manager at Ivanhoe Cambridge, a job she has enjoyed ever since.

Lorna believes that the most important part of her personal and professional development was the people she met along the way. We’ve all been told on numerous occasions that networking is important, but for Lorna it has been her key to success. The networking that she did and the mentors she had truly helped her achieve her goals. She notes that who you know is sometimes more important than what you know.

A ‘Typical Day’ for Lorna

Lorna is a very busy lady who uses an efficient and comprehensive agenda system to keep her on track. Her organizational system is her bible, and would impress even the strictest CAAP teacher. On a daily basis, she balances meetings with staff, conference calls, ad proofing, mall walk-throughs, business lunches, and issue resolution. About five times each month, she is responsible for handing in reports relating to issues such as sales or marketing. Because Ivanhoe Cambridge is jointly owned, there are two sets of partners that she reports to (which keeps her very busy). Just recently, Lorna was showing the German partnership group, CGI, around the shopping centre.

Experiences at Ivanhoe Cambridge

Both the best and the worst experiences that Lorna has had at Ivanhoe Cambridge generally relate to the people she is working with. She finds that developing her staff, and watching them grow in their careers is the most fulfilling part of her job. Daily interactions and the friendships that develop are also very rewarding. She also greatly enjoys problem solving, either on her own or working with her team. However, when things go wrong (when the problem cannot be solved or staffing issues are particularly challenging), an otherwise positive experience can cause stress.

Company Structure

Like the previous companies interviewed for this blog, Ivanhoe Cambridge is a very large company requiring a hierarchical structure. The organizational structure is clearly laid out on the company intranet, allowing all employees to see their position within the company, and identify who they can go to for help. Tight-knit groups willing to support each other develop at every level. The following org chart represents the company structure around Lorna:

Company Values

Ivanhoe Cambridge strongly believes in respect and integrity, and this is clearly seen at all levels of the organization. Lorna is proud to say that these core values adopted by the company are not just “lip service” but are actually followed and are integral to the operations of the company. When hiring, Ivanhoe Cambridge looks for respect and integrity in its candidates, as well as flexibility, confidence, kindness, a customer service orientation, and, most importantly, a strong ability to work in teams. While it is now necessary to have a college or university degree to work at Ivanhoe Cambridge, personality is more important than education. So, it is very important to let your personality shine through when you are writing your resume for this company, and even more so in your interview.

Starting out at Ivanhoe Cambridge

Once shortlisted at Ivanhoe Cambridge, prepare for a competency based interview. Then, after your interview is over, prepare for another! (If you’re applying for a key position, that is). When choosing someone for a key position, Ivanhoe Cambridge interviews each candidate by several different members of the organization. This allows them to compare notes and impressions about the candidate to ensure that this person works with the whole team. Psychological profiles (established through tests) are also often utilized to help identify whether your personality is truly suited to the work you’ll be doing. Sorry, studying won’t help you here!

Once you are hired, you will go through both training and team building exercises to incorporate yourself into the workspace comfortably. To further this training, Ivanhoe Cambridge encourages employees to take courses and use books throughout the course of employment. Every Tuesday morning, meetings are held to update the staff on company news, and Pizza Fridays give everyone a chance to relax a bit and be updated on the news of coworkers. Lorna has also stressed that Ivanhoe Cambridge understands that its employees have a life outside of work, and attempts to allow really focuses on creating work-life balance.

For new graduates looking for a starting position, there are a wide variety of options available in the various departments of Ivanhoe Cambridge (as opposed to there being particular starting positions in which all entry level people start). Each department has at least a few levels of advancement, as defined in the company org chart. To give current employees a competitive advantage, all jobs are first posted internally. Only when no suitable candidates are available internally are the jobs then posted externally. Every external position is listed on the website, all internal positions on the company intranet. If your goal is to be Lorna Park (or as close as you can get—General Manager), you are encouraged to spend some time working in all of the departments. This provides better grounding for the variety of tasks you will need to do.

Hidden Benefits

All full time employees of Ivanhoe Cambridge are eligible to receive bonuses tied to their own performance, and the performance of their work center, department, and region. There is also non-monetary recognition to acknowledge the little extra things that people do around the company. Dinners, awards, and gift certificates are used to make people feel special and appreciated.

Working at Ivanhoe Cambridge also allows for a level of freedom that is not found at all companies. What Lorna enjoys the most about her position is the ability to set her own hours—within reason—and to be mobile around the centre as opposed to being “tied to her desk.” Employees are also able to occasionally work from home when they need to, another important factor creating work-life balance.

Travel & Other

Because Ivanhoe Cambridge is a global company, there are many travel opportunities for which all employees are eligible to explore. Travelling for conferences or to meet with foreign partners is the most common (for example, to visit the German partners who recently came to Mayfair). Work positions are available in other countries such as China, Europe, Brazil, and India at the company’s other shopping centre locations. Lorna herself is currently preparing for an upcoming trip to China (Ivanhoe Cambridge is providing language lessons and cultural training).

Advice to Graduating Students

Learn whatever it is that you want to learn, and never be afraid to go after things that you want. As Lorna both tells us and shows us by her own example: “If you want it, go for it!”

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[1] Our Company, 2007, Ivanhoe Cambridge, http://www.ivanhoecambridge.com/en-CA/HomePage/index.aspx#/en-CA/OurCompany (accessed November 22, 2007).