The changing face, and pace, of manufacturing

I have obtained Master's Degree in Geography from Masaryk University in Brno in 1984 and  MBA from Sheffield Hallam  University in 1997. 

First ten years of my proffesional Iife I  worked as a planner both in  private consulting   as well as  for the City of Brno as a Deputy Chief Architect heading Urban Development & Renewal Team. There I  have gained not only the understanding of how planning impacts the development but also  how to proactively use planning policies to initiate and support developments in both greenfields and brownfields. I had also studied relevant planing practices in the UK, Netherlands, USA and Japan.  

I joined Bovis P&O Team in Brno in 1994 shortly after this  developer started to  build Czech Technology Park, which was  one of the first industrial developments in Central Europe  in cooperation between the City  and Technical University. My mission  was to  promote this development, identify potential customers,  work with the construction team  in order to accomodate the needs of the tenants and manage the leaase transaction on behalf of the developer. I worked with companies such as Siemens or Silicon Graphics  , which became the first tenants of this development.

In 1996 I joined Colliers International as Senior Property Consultant to build   the Industrial Real Estate Agency in the Czech Republic.

I have grown and managed the industrial team of Colliers up till 2009 during which period this team became leader in the Czech industrial   market having  transacted  over 3 milion sq m of industrial floor space and land  both on behalf of the occupiers as well as the landlords.  Most of the customers were international companies such as Prologis, AIG Lincoln, Ctp or Goodman on the landlord side or Bridgestone, VF Europe,  Johnson Controls, Schenker, DSV, Gebruder Weiss, DHL,  Moduslink and many others on the occupier side . 

During this period I have also worked on behalf of the my  international occupier clients Bridgestone and Moduslink in the other European markets such as Spain or France as well as various countries of Central Europe.

 Shortly after the begining of financial crisis in the early 2009 I became Managing Director of Colliers Czech Republic and took the team through the trubled, loses making period and transformed it to the profitable business. 

In the midle of 2011 I have joined newly formed Corporate Solutions team in London to accomodate the needs of my existing as well as new industrial and manufacturing  customers across EMEA.  Since then I have   actively managed  industrial and manufactuirng related projects   in 17  countries of Europe, US  and Asia   covering the whole business life of the real estate: from location consulting through lease or freehold acquisition, portfolio management  to the building dissposals. 

Damian Harrington is a Director and Head of Research for both Global Capital Markets and EMEA at Colliers. He has over 20 years of experience in the real estate industry living and working from various locations across EMEA including London, Dubai, Prague, Helsinki and Amsterdam. Damian is responsible for producing research for internal and external clients. His expertise helps to provide clients with global capital market trends and analysis, and connects them with strategic and actionable insights, such as the changing nature of global capital and the impact on global capital flows. Damian has produced numerous research papers and generated analysis of markets across all asset types - from residential to offices, retail to logistics and hotels to niche sectors such as life sciences, air cargo and data centres. Damian is a member of the EMEA location strategy team and a key member of Colliers ESG focus group.  He speaks regularly at internal global conferences, external industry events hosted by GRI, ULI and other key industry bodies, plus key annual events such as MIPIM and EXPO REAL.

Damian holds a Masters degree in European Property Development and Planning from University College London, a BPI Bachelor of Planning from the University of Amsterdam and a BA (Hons) in Town and Country Planning from Manchester University. He is also a qualified surveyor, holding an MRICS with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.