{"id":14472,"date":"2024-08-22T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/?p=14472"},"modified":"2024-08-22T13:49:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T13:49:03","slug":"eric-wo-on-three-decades-in-the-real-estate-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/eric-wo-on-three-decades-in-the-real-estate-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Wo on three decades in the real estate sector"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After three decades in the real estate sector, Eric Wo from Savills has plenty of advice to offer British companies looking to succeed in the Chinese market. Tom Pattinson<\/strong> sat down with him to find out more about his business experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When I sit down to speak with Eric Wo, Managing Director of Savills North China, he is dapper in a crisp white shirt and dark suit despite the heat of the Beijing summer. Traditional Chinese paintings and scrolls with ink-painted calligraphy adorn the walls behind him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric Wo was born in Hong Kong and studied in the UK. He attended a boarding school in Wiltshire, before taking a degree at Southampton University. Diploma in hand, Wo returned to Hong Kong in 1990 and joined real estate company First Pacific Davies (predecessor of Savills) in 1995. A year later, Wo moved with the company first to Guangzhou, then Shanghai, then Beijing. In 2006, he was asked to set up Savills\u2019 South West China division out of Chengdu, where he remained until he returned to Beijing in 2023 after being made Managing Director of Savills North China.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThat was a cold start when I was put in charge of the Chengdu office,  and our competitors were already in the market for over one year,\u201d explains Wo. \u201cIt was a tough post and hard to survive because the market was not very mature in Chengdu at that time. And for Savills, it was also very challenging to find the right person for the role. Luckily, I started up from setting up the office, then I opened the business successfully, and I stayed in the post.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wo\u2019s role as MD of Savills North China is a culmination of three decades working in the same sector across the same region for the same company. He has witnessed the learning years of the 1990s, the boom years of the 2000s, the regulated years of the 2010s and the challenging years of the 2020s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n