- Written by Dougal Shaw
- BBC News business reporter
image source, A&O Studio
When Sanmi Adegoke started his career, he had no connections to the world of real estate development. In an industry where few of his CEOs are Black, he leveraged his unique connections to succeed as an outsider and build his own company from the ground up.
Sanmi Adegoke, who came to the UK from Nigeria as a teenager with her parents in the early 2000s, experienced racism early on.
His first job was working at fast food chain McDonald's in South London, where he said people approached him at the register and sometimes used racial slurs.
“Or they'd say, 'No, you don't want me to serve,'” he recalls. “And I had to accept that.”
McDonald had zero tolerance for these customers, but it was his Christian faith that gave him the strength to deal with the abuse. “I say to these people, 'Jesus loves everyone. You're just ignorant.'”
Mr. Adegoke rose through the ranks at McDonald's and rose to a management position.
Knowing that he had an entrepreneurial spirit, a colleague gifted him with a book that would have a lasting impact on him. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki advocates investing in assets such as real estate in order to advance in society.
Inspired, after graduating from university, he started investing in the UK property market and began buying and selling off-plan (pre-construction) apartments from developers.
He was hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis, but by 2013 he had made enough money to set up the Rehoboth Property Group business.
image source, Sanmi Adegoke
Adegoke says Britain has given him many opportunities, including getting an education.
However, in the real estate business, who you know is very important.
“It's hard to get in if you don't have connections,” explains Priya Agarwal Shah, founder and director of real estate organization BAME. “For example, networking opportunities come more easily to people from certain backgrounds who like golf, rugby, skiing and drinking.”
Adegoke didn't yet have any connections in the property development world, so he decided to use them in London's predominantly black faith communities.
He has been attending church groups since he was five years old in Nigeria, and when he came to London he joined an affiliated congregation.
Church attendance has steadily declined in the UK over the past few decades. The Church of England gradually sold off many of its properties, including churches.
But south London is bucking this trend precisely because of immigrants like Mr Adegoke. There are believed to be more than 250 black-majority churches in south London, with thousands of people worshiping every Sunday.
Adegoke grew his business by renovating old post-war entertainment spaces and turning them into places where his congregation could worship.
Adegoke's team's earlier project renovated the Lighthouse venue in Camberwell, south London.
Early projects included converting a bingo hall and Woolwich Magistrates Court in Camberwell, south London, into spaces for religious groups.
He has since expanded his real estate empire, specializing in the reuse and refurbishment of a wider variety of buildings, turning places such as old pubs and police stations into co-working spaces, community halls and event spaces.
His Rehoboth Group currently undertakes over 20 major refurbishment projects, employs over 20 people and manages property assets worth £35 million.
Mr. Adegoke's success as a CEO of a real estate company makes him a maverick. The UK property industry has known for many years that it has a problem promoting diversity and talent.
A report last year by Action Sustainability consultancy found that people from ethnic minority backgrounds made up 13.6% of employees at companies involved in the built environment. This is much better than his figure of 1.2% in another major study carried out by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in 2016, but still below the ONS threshold of 18.5%.
Mr Adegoke's company helped convert the pub in Camden, north London, into a series of apartments and event space.
Priya Agarwal Shah says her expressiveness has improved a lot recently. But the industry is bad at retaining new talent, and diversity has fallen dramatically at CEO level, with many sharing stories of microaggressions and not fitting in, she said. To tell.
A 2021 survey by Estate Gazette, which provides data and analysis for the commercial real estate market, found that 84% of respondents from ethnic minority backgrounds felt racism was an issue in the workplace, with 75 % of respondents said they had experienced racial discrimination.
“In this country, we are obsessed with owning a home, and this is emblematic of our industry because real estate is all about relationships,” Ms. Agarwal Shah says. “Our natural affinity bias kicks in because we trust people who have this much money. We want to work with people who are similar to us.”
She argues that this is why many people from ethnic minority backgrounds working in the industry, like Adegoke, end up starting their own real estate companies.
“My business dreams came true because I started with what I know best,” Adegoke explains.
“The process of change is gradually building,” he added. He believes that in 20 years his own children won't have to face the kind of racism he faced at the cash register.
“Actually, they'll get my story across. You see that guy who worked at McDonald's? Look at what he's done.”
You can find more stories from the CEO Secrets series here.
Follow series producer Dougal Shaw on X (formerly Twitter) here.
