VIEW FROM THE TOP
Crown Estate CEO, Dan Labbad
Bringing modern purpose to a storied institution
By Paul van Zyl
“If you’re in a position of influence, you should be using that influence. A thousand percent,” says Dan Labbad
King Offa’s Oak is the oldest tree in Britain, having sprouted from the earth 1,300 years ago.
It sits in Berkshire’s Windsor Great Park and is named after a Mercian king who ruled 300 years before the Normans arrived to take out Harold’s eye. It is a part of British history, roots deep in the soil, carefully tended to and preserved for the nation.
It has survived wars and hurricanes, and it continues to grow – shedding acorns every autumn, new buds appearing every spring – as it has for more than a millennium.
The ultimate steward of King Offa’s Oak – and a little more than 1% of the land in England and Wales – is Dan Labbad, CEO of The Crown Estate.
Labbad has a unique job, for a uniquely British institution. The Crown Estate manages holdings owned by the monarch, though not his private property. It is an independent business sitting between the public and private sectors, with profits going to the government for the benefit of public spending.
Alongside ancient oaks, those holdings include London’s Regent Street, rolling countryside, shopping centres, and the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Labbad and I meet at Rucola, The Conduit’s rooftop restaurant in Covent Garden, a short stroll from hundreds of Crown Estate properties around Regent Street and St James’s.
As he settles at our table for a light lunch, he is crisply dressed in a dark suit, deeply thoughtful in his words, and highly aware of the rarity of the institution he leads.
“The organisation is unique in that it needs to be commercial, but it serves under a remit to have impact,” he says. “We focus on four key areas: how we contribute to solving the climate crisis and the energy security crisis, how we support nature recovery, how we help community and economic development, and how we continue to create economic and financial value.”
That financial value comes in two forms: net profits, which are paid directly to the UK treasury and amounted to a record £1.1bn last year, and by providing jobs and opportunities on estate land.
It is interesting that Labbad lists finance last, when it is the money that enables the rest to happen. Conversations about the tension between profit and purpose happen among Conduit members every day, and I wonder how he expects The Crown Estate to balance the two.
While he won’t be chopping down King Offa’s Oak to make way for a retail park, there must be moments of conflict between benefiting the environment and benefiting the exchequer?
“Long-term shareholder value and long-term wealth is positively correlated with mitigating the climate crisis, resolving nature distress and creating a more equitable society,” he says. “Day-to-day society is geared almost subconsciously to the short term, yet we know our future prosperity is positively correlated in the long term.”
The more we talk, the clearer it becomes that Labbad is that rare combination: someone highly commercially astute, but fully committed to positive impact. This is not a real estate manager who has belatedly discovered purpose. It is genuinely at the core of all he does.
I am also struck by what a remarkable, quintessentially British, institution The Crown Estate is. Steeped in legacy, but oriented towards the future, and committed to use its brand value and assets to address challenges like the climate crisis and economic inclusion. It’s also an institution willing to appoint someone like Labbad.
Labbad’s background is different to what many might expect. He has not been plucked from the UK establishment but is the son of “first-generation Australians” – an Italian mother and Egyptian father – and was raised in a working-class area of Sydney.
“I grew up in an Arab, European, Anglo sort of world because my parents had a lot of diverse friends, and the house was always open. A big part of our lives were my Italian grandparents,” he says.
“And they had very, very little. I mean, for them, success and life was about having the family around the table and food on the table.”
It is a family he describes as giving, regardless of how little they had, and which seems to have had a lasting impact on his own view of what an individual can do.
“You get to a certain point where you can be in roles where you play it safe and get a pat on the back. And nothing frustrates me more than meeting people who are like that. If you’re in a position of influence, you should be using that influence. A thousand percent.”
His own influence today is significant.
Alongside the money The Crown Estate contributes to the UK exchequer, it provides enough energy from offshore wind to power 11 million homes. A new partnership with Great British Energy aims to more than treble output by 2030, with a new bill on its way to parliament to alter how this unique institution can borrow and invest.
The estate runs development projects across the country, including a new business hub in Cambridge to support the city’s growing tech industry, and it supports rural communities, sustainable farming, and urban regeneration.
It is also looking at how it can support housing across its portfolio, including through mixed-use regeneration schemes.
“Housing is a public good, just like hospitals are a public good. And I think there are ways where we can draw in the expertise of private markets more efficiently to get more houses built and maintain affordability,” he says.
Bridging the private sector, government and the estate’s own role is a significant part of his job. “I think we need partnerships like never before,” he says. “You have to diagnose at the systems level because if you don’t diagnose at the systems level, you’re probably going to be solving the wrong problem – or certainly solving the problem in the wrong way.”
These are lessons learned across a long career, including 16 years in senior roles at Lendlease, and as a director of the Green Building Council of Australia and as chairman of the UK Green Building Council. He is also an NED of Raspberry Pi, a firm he describes as, “an incredibly powerful British success story with some incredible people coming together and having high impact”.
And throughout those roles, purpose has been prominent.
“As a young man 30 years ago, I realized that I had a strong sense of social justice and I could see a world that needed change.”
Making that change happen comes about through a management style he describes as, ‘micro leadership.’
“You are up high for enough of the time to read the chaos,” he explains, “but on acute problems and acute opportunities, you are able to deep dive”.
It is an approach that can be hands-on, but also empowering of others.
“One of the things I’m incredibly proud of is working with people who have never experienced the art of the possible…and then chip away, and ultimately wake up one day and think, ‘Oh, I did that’” he says.
The Crown Estate could easily be an archaic institution mired in outdated traditions, but it is clearly serving as a powerful force for good.
Given the urgency of the challenges the UK is confronting, I wonder whether it could do more. It’s a question that features prominently in Labbad’s approach to leadership.
“Thirty years ago, you’d say something as a leader and people would just follow. Then 10 years ago, people would ask you why. And today, young people in particular say: show me your workings,” he explains. “The exam question we ask ourselves every day is: what do we need to do today to get better at having a bigger impact?”
One young person is a particular influence – Labbad’s six-year-old daughter. He lives with his family in multicultural Hackney, east London, and is acutely aware of the world the next generation will inherit.
“What I care about most is that she can grow up and be who she needs to be without judgment for being a woman, judgment for being who she is,” he says. “The only way that we can create that world is by being that world ourselves”.
It is an idea that will resonate with many: we must create the world that we want to leave behind. And to make it last, it must be as resilient – and adaptable – as an old oak tree.
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