Jai Kalia, Real Estate Services Senior Facilities Manager is celebrating 25 years of employment at Marsh & McLennan Companies – and coincidentally 25 years of working here at Brindleyplace!
We sat down with him to chat about this remarkable achievement, his thoughts about the estate and to see what he thinks the next 25 years may have in store.
Jai left college in August 1999 and began looking for temporary work while he decided what he wanted to concentrate on as a career. At this time, Marsh & McLennan (MMC) were based at 3 Broadway and had just negotiated a lease on office space in 4 Brindleyplace.
Jai accepted work as an interim post room assistant for MMC at 3 Broadway for what he thought was a few months. However, once leases were sorted, and with the offer of a permanent position in hand, Jai began his long-term commitment to MMC and his love affair with Brindleyplace was about to commence…
Jai admits he never envisaged the “mad” journey he was to embark upon, never imagining he’d stay with Marsh McLennan as long as he has but he’s immensely proud and feels extremely lucky for all the opportunities afforded to him during his career to date.
From the start, in his job in the post room, Jai realised he liked the world of facilities, and he grasped every opportunity he could to learn more, enrolling on any relevant courses he could find and making himself part of any facilities teams that would have him! He was eager to learn and grow his knowledge of facilities management. Over several years that hunger for more roles kept growing and in November 2014, Jai was TUPEd into an external service provider part of MMC which enabled him to start looking after additional buildings.
In fact, the highlight of Jai’s career has been the progression opportunities he has been given. He’s now Senior Facilities Manager for the UK, in charge of 22 locations (he’s keen to let us know that the reason he has such a nice car is because he drove 25,000 miles last year!) He loves travelling to the different locations and wearing a different hat in each one of them. The variety of work in his role is phenomenal and something he thrives on.
However, and this is where our ears prick up, Jai likes nothing better than being right here at Brindleyplace – “where it really all began”. Brindleyplace feels like his home.
Marsh McLennan is a global professional services firm with two operating segments, Risk and Insurance Services and Consulting and the MMC office in 4 Brindleyplace is made up of a variety of senior people, the majority of whom moved to the company from outside of Birmingham. Jai notes that he feels Brindleyplace helped them all settle into the city. MMC is a very demanding, busy office but Jai loves the buzz he gets every time he’s in it.
He, and his colleagues, also love the social side of Brindleyplace. They appreciate the restaurants and bars, the markets and Film Festival and Jai particularly loves the summer at Brindleyplace – dreamily chatting about how he enjoys sitting on the grass or by the fountains, eating his lunch and watching the world go by!
Jai’s seen a lot of change at Brindleyplace over his 25 year career, from physical changes in the development, such as the building receptions and the fountains to changes in leadership and even the owners, but he’s keen to have noted that throughout everything the sense of cooperation and engagement has not faltered – in fact, he claims Brindleyplace is ‘incomparable’ with anywhere else he visits and he’s very grateful to be part of such a lovely environment.
He can’t thank Brindleyplace enough for the flexibility shown to MMC. Several years ago, they were hosting a big Town Hall event for hundreds of people and Brindleyplace let them borrow the 4th floor of a building. As a company, they’ve had two complete refurbishments over the past 25 years and Brindleyplace has been nothing but accommodating and helpful throughout.
Jai likes what Brindleyplace offers from both a professional and personal perspective. He thoroughly enjoys the ‘exceptional’ work/life balance he feels on the estate. He can work here and enjoy himself after work here. In Jai’s exact words: “Brindleyplace is a massive part of me. It has contributed to who I am today”.
Out of the office, Jai is very family focused. He has two children, a 14 year-old daughter and a 15 year-old son so a lot of his weekends are spent taking them to activities and events. He’s a huge cricket fan – both player and spectator – and he supports Liverpool football club.
As for what the next 25 years holds, he hopes for “more of the same but different!” He looks forward to another 25 years at MMC and Brindleyplace, loving what he’s doing and working on learning lots more. He understands you can never know everything and he’s always keen to progress.
Finally, for a bit of fun, we asked Jai what three words describe his career to date? To which he answered: educational, appreciative and successful, and what three words describe Brindleyplace for him? His answer this time: sociable, professional and friendly! We couldn’t agree more, thanks Jai.
