A rare female C-suite executive in proptech, Gabrielle McMillan didn’t even plan to work in real estate or technology. Yet the founder and CEO of Equiem finds herself a far cry from the 300-acre dairy farm she grew up on in rural Nathalia in Victoria, Australia.
“I grew up milking cows and climbing trees until I was 11,” she recalled. “So my upbringing was pretty independent and very outdoorsy.”
Even so, she also had an entrepreneurial streak.
“As a small kid, I would build cubbies and sell things, make my parents buy from my bakery,” she added. “As I got older, I created businesses, creating a photography studio where I printed my own flyers to promote them. My upbringing gave me the freedom and confidence to know I could succeed at anything I put my mind to.”
She studied business marketing and communications in college, and with the encouragement of a mentor early in her career, took on ever more responsibility. In two years, she became the general manager of the company.
“I was very young to do that,” she said. “But that’s the thing about being offered those opportunities — you either sink or swim. You learn a lot faster when you’re doing things you don’t how know to do. You just have to be really good at getting the right people around you and those who have the experience you lack, whether it’s a mentor or just a network. Early in my career, someone told me, ‘You’ll be fine, because you’re not afraid to ask what you don’t know.’”
Previously, McMillan had been a director and general manager of Advance Marketing, an Australian agency that had a diverse client base but a particular concentration in fitness centers.
“I’d been there for 13 years and was thinking about what to do next,” she said. “I was very passionate about doing something in technology.”
In 2011, she was introduced to Lorenz Grollo, a third-generation developer.
“If you grew up in Australia, the Grollo name is pretty synonymous with real estate,” she said. “They’ve developed and built most of Melbourne’s skyline: the tallest towers, residential towers.”
The family had a 50% interest in the Rialto, an iconic building in Melbourne (the second tallest in the city) that was 25 years old and needed some updating, even though the asset manager had ensured that its value had continued to grow.
“He was looking at this hugely valuable asset and really wanted to make sure it remained relevant,” she said. “He talked to me about wanting to regenerate it and reposition it, using technology to activate a community, supercharge the retail and improve the services.”
Though she had no background in real estate, Grollo’s plans resonated with McMillan.
“A lot of what you do in the wellness space was what he was trying to do: hospitality and experience,” she said. “And the fact that he wanted to do that with a best-in-class technology platform aligned with my ideas at the time.”
Her fresh point of view regarding property management was an advantage and was the catalyst for Equiem, which provides a digital strategy to turn a building into a community by opening communications between tenants, owners, managers and retailers, a then-revolutionary idea. They then realized that the platform could work for other buildings and other countries as well.
“Very early on, we had ambitions,” she said. “Even before we built the first version of the platform, we spoke to some people globally to see if anything like this already existed. It didn’t.”
In 2015, Equiem had the choice of remaining in Australia but expanding into other asset classes, such as retail, or taking its office platform global. McMillan and the company opted for international expansion for the existing program, software and team. Today, Equiem is in more than 200 buildings in Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland and 13 cities in 11 states in the U.S. McMillan is planning to expand into new regions, including Canada and Singapore.
Equiem’s success comes from Grollo’s three-generation-deep real estate roots, she said, even though the sector is notoriously slow to adopt new technologies.
“Lorenz had been living and breathing these problems for years,” McMillan said. “It’s a standard line, but when you’re trying to solve a classic problem, you’ll have a much better chance of success. You have to know how real estate works: leasing is important; renewals are important. We had that advantage early on.”
Patience and resilience were also key factors, she continued.
“It’s always going to take longer than you think to get your first customer and way longer to get your second and third,” she said. “I look now at what we did in Australia, and it seems incredible that we did it in that short a window of time. But at the time, it felt like forever. You just have to grind it out.”
McMillan is too busy, in fact, to notice that she is that rare female CEO in proptech.
“I’ve benefited from a lot of work women have done ahead of me,” she said. “Ten years ago, we were almost always selling to men. But I’ve always felt quite comfortable in my own skin. I feel like I’m quite gender-blind. Often, I’m not cognizant that I’m the only woman in the room.”
Networking groups are popping up for women in proptech, she notes, and Equiem staff members are involved in them.
“I encourage women in our company to build their profile and get involved in these networks and support other women,” she said.
“It is fun, and you feel like you’re trailblazing,” she continued. “Equiem is a mature real estate tech company, but it’s a really exciting space to be in. There’s a lot of growth and a lot of opportunity.”
