We speak to Andrew Rinaldi, managing director at Antler Homes about his housebuilding career journey and ambitions.
Please tell us a little about yourself and your current role.
I co-led the acquisition of Antler Homes back in 2018, and since then we have focused on the strategic growth of the business while staying true to Antler Home’s design-led roots. My role is incredibly varied and means that I am involved in every aspect of the business, from planning and executing our growth strategy, to identifying and buying land, through to design, construction, sales and marketing.
The overarching plan is to grow the business significantly over the next three to five years, both within our existing geography and in adjoining regions. Longer term, we have a fantastic team, brand and product and we feel there is so much more we can do with the business.
When did your career in housebuilding begin and what drew you to it?
I joined Taylor Wimpey Plc in 2010, initially working with the CEO on strategy, mergers and acquisitions. One of my biggest achievements at Taylor Wimpey was to lead the $950million sale of the North American business to a private equity consortium.
I was then lucky enough to take on a variety of director roles that really introduced me to the business properly, including land and planning director, technical director, construction director and operations director, so I benefited from full exposure to a wide range of areas of the business.
What I find most appealing about working in the housebuilding industry is the difference we can make to people’s lives. If we can deliver really beautiful, functional and environmentally friendly homes to our customers, with a smooth and pleasant customer journey, this can have a really positive impact on the lives of our customers and is a really exciting and satisfying part of what we do.
Is there a typical day or week in your job?
There is no typical day and that is why it is such a great job!
My day might involve working in the office on strategy, design and development, or getting involved with the commercial side of the business, to working alongside our site teams and our sales teams at our developments. As a growing business, a good amount of my day is also spent with our most important resource – our people.
With the company celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer, is there something special about working at a company with such heritage?
Absolutely – we are very proud to carry on the tradition of delivering beautiful, design-led homes for our customers, half a century since Antler Homes was established. Antler has a fantastic reputation for exceptional design and high quality and we are honoured as a team to evolve this legacy and take it to the next level.
We are committed to the continued growth of our fantastic business, by delivering attractive, high-quality homes in towns and villages where people want to live. We want our customers to be proud to own an Antler home, and to recognise our passion for excellent customer care. We are committed to employing and developing the best people to help us get there and will continue to provide many opportunities for advancement, development and training.
In your time at Antler, have there been achievements of which you are particularly proud?
I am extremely proud of the team that I work with here and the developments that we have created. It is also very gratifying to receive positive feedback from our homeowners, particularly from young families with very busy lives – knowing how important their new home is to them, when we get it right and make their lives easier, that makes me hugely proud. It makes the hard work worthwhile. Witnessing our company and our people develop in line with our expansion plans is exceptionally satisfying.
When you look at an entire Antler Homes project, are there other roles you see which you especially admire?
Every single person at Antler Homes plays a crucial role; if a project is successful, we have all been successful. We are very collaborative and very much in it together. We have made many great additions to our team recently and we are excited to keep growing, building our team further and taking on an even greater number and range of projects together.
What are your current career ambitions?
I feel like I have only just got started here – it has been four years but it seems like yesterday that we first started working with the business. With this team and this business, I think there is so much more we can accomplish and we have really good momentum. I want to drive each of us to achieve what I know we are all capable of achieving. I am already incredibly proud of what we have built thus far, and I look forward to seeing the business and our team evolve even further.
For young people who are starting to choose a career path, do you have any advice for those considering housebuilding?
Go for it! It is an incredible industry and there is such a diverse range of opportunities and routes to take to suit all interests, whether that is construction and site management or finance, sales or marketing. Housebuilding is an industry that generates a lot of pride; our team can see the end result of their hard work and understand the difference they have made to our customers and our communities.
There are many exciting opportunities available at Antler Homes for people with the drive to be a part of a collaborative, close-knit team; we are all committed to making ourselves and our business the best we can be.
We are proud that we have a number of trainees in the business – across our construction, commercial and technical teams. Some of these team members are part of an apprenticeship scheme we have been running in partnership with University of Portsmouth, where our apprentices attend a full day of classes one day per week in addition to all that they learn on the job with us. Our apprentices bring a fresh perspective, are highly motivated and are always willing to gain a greater understanding of not just their chosen field, but our entire business, putting theory into practice to do the very best job they can. It is incredibly rewarding for us to be able to see our apprentices grow as individuals and within their teams, contributing to our highly driven, skilled and committed workforce. We are about to take on another apprentice through this programme and are looking to expand this to other universities and disciplines.
Do you think there is an important role for SMEs in the industry?
Yes – definitely. Antler Homes’ legacy and reputation is based on our ability as a smaller housebuilder to deliver a more personal, individually designed home. There are often concerns voiced that the dominance of the big players can lead to generic product, with a less personal journey. We think SMEs have an important part to play to ensure the delivery of a variety of homes to meet the needs and aspirations of every person who wants to buy a home, and we are very proud to be playing our part.
We also believe that we, and other SMEs, offer a different perspective on the customer journey – to us, every customer is important and individual, and our customer service must reflect this. We want to delight our customers and hear them spreading the word. We are only as good as the last home we delivered and we are very committed to continuing to doing better and better. Our homes and our customers are a source of great pride to us, and we feel that as an SME we can make a difference to the lives of our customers and to their communities.
