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Is There Really An Appetite For Energy Efficiency Within Commercial Real Estate? with Zachary Denning & Jerremy Spillman

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Oct 11, 2022

Summary:  In the sixth episode of Season 10 of the
Propcast, host Louisa Dickins is joined by
Zachary Denning and
Jerremy Spillman
,
co-founders of
Hank. JLL’s recently acquired AI-powered virtual
engineering platform for buildings.

Zach and Jerremy share how Hank
is helping the commercial real estate world reduce emissions and
assist clients in their transition to net zero. The guests discuss
the geographical differences surrounding the adoption and consensus
of technology that they have noticed since Hank successfully
expanded to Europe. 

In this episode you’ll hear
about the ever changing appetite for efficiency within commercial
real estate, how technology can help real estate meet its
sustainability goals and what the future holds for
Hank. 

Resources:

Shout Outs:

Key Insights From This Episode:  

  • You could put a Ferrari engine into a building,
    but if you don’t know how to drive it you’re not going to get
    anything out of it – Jerremy
  • If you’re not able to satisfy both the
    ownership and the investor level as well as the property level,
    you’re never going to have a successful product –
    Jerremy
  • We’re driving a culture of execution, everybody
    on the team is on the same mission to drive revenue, if we’re not
    driving revenue then we’re stagnant – Zachary
  • I figured out that smart buildings aren’t so
    smart, machine learning is the future of this industry –
    Zachary 
  • Why not be inside the largest, most progressive
    property management ownership firm in the world? There’s no more
    strategic partnership than that – Zachary

 

About Our Guests:

Zachary Denning:

 

Zachary Denning earned his degree in mechanical engineering and
has always had a strong aptitude for software development. In his
+10 years in the smart buildings industry, he was able to identify
and solve core building engineering challenges using applied
machine-learning and AI – Eventually leading to the development of
a new market, virtual engineering. Zach has grown the Hank virtual
engineering team to over 50 members under JLL and together they’re
pushing the boundaries of machine-learning in building operations
to maximise client value.

 

Jerremy Spillman:

 

Over the last 12 years

Jerremy
has worked in
the clean tech space ranging from utility DSM program management to
battery powered electric vehicle charging stations.  Most
recently Jerremy co-founded Hank, an A.I. powered HVAC management
tool for commercial office buildings.  Hank was recently
acquired by JLL Technologies as a key tool to meet their aggressive
sustainability goals.

 

About Hank:

 

Recently acquired by
JLL, Hank is a virtual engineering platform powered by
artificial intelligence (AI) that autonomously optimises the
management systems of commercial buildings to deliver increased
comfort, air quality and energy savings.

 

Hank’s system applies machine
learning and AI to solve many of the commercial real estate (CRE)
industry’s largest operational challenges, including HVAC
programming inconsistencies and energy and equipment performance
inefficiencies. Its cloud-based platform optimises energy
efficiency, air quality, maintenance costs and tenant comfort –
ultimately delivering increased net operating income (NOI) to real
estate investors.

 

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly
become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and
search consultancy with operations across North America, United
Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is
so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast


‘The Propcast’
where she
hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join
her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in
Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was
to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to
the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart
Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed
at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and
clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking
exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK,
Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

 

Timestamps:

[2:04] Zach: Can you tell us
about your career journey to founding Hank and also how you know
Jerremy?

  • I started out as a mechanical engineer in the
    smart building industry. I learnt that the owners of buildings
    rarely know which control systems are in their buildings despite
    these softwares generating savings. I taught myself machine
    learning and realised that it has the ability to solve these
    problems in a long term capacity. 
  • I won a grant and spent time developing a
    software that proved that machine learning could drive substantial
    savings in buildings and we can generate huge economics for
    clients.
  • I went out fundraising through several channels
    and that’s when I met Jerremy and pulled him in as co-founder and
    CRO, and this carried us to JLL.  

[4:15] Zach: How long did it
take you to develop the software?

  • The first year I spent developing a solid
    foundation for the software so I had a product that I could test
    the market with. I received a grant in year 2 and by testing the
    market, proved that it had improved the comfort within buildings
    dramatically.
  • By the end of year 3, we had viable proof of
    the product and concept and therefore the ability to go out and
    fundraise. 

[6:02] Jerremy: What has it been
like since your introduction to Zach?

  • I started my career in sales so since meeting
    Zach it has been really exciting understanding the new market that
    there is for technology and quickly picking up the nuances in the
    industry.
  • This completely new way of managing the largest
    energy consumer and cost driver in a building has made me really
    passionate about what we’re doing with Hank.

[7:47] Zach: Can you explain a
little bit about what Hank is?

  • The Hank product itself is a true machine
    learning virtual engineer, we don’t do any physical work in
    buildings or have an onsite team.
  • Hank enables engineers in buildings to do their
    job more effectively and not have to worry about changing
    setpoints, tuning systems in or working with a variety of different
    stakeholders to solve their problems.
  • We work alongside existing smart building
    systems that are already in place, we drive a saving on energy of
    at least 15% and sometimes as much as 50%.

[11:50] Jerremy: How does Hank
help investors meet their sustainability goals?

  • Hank is a Software-as-a-Service, so there is no
    replacing of controllers, we just drive what is already in place to
    its highest efficiency and that allows them to build their
    sustainability plan for the future. 
  • If you’re not able to satisfy both the
    ownership and the investor level as well as the property level,
    you’re never going to have a successful product.
  • We have utilised the data and found that we can
    fix comfort without sacrificing energy and we can save energy
    without sacrificing comfort.

[16:06] Jerremy: How did your
acquisition by JLL Technologies come about and what does it mean
for your business?

  • We align well with JLL because our number one
    priority for meeting sustainability is carbon reduction which JLL
    succeeds in with all of their vendors.
  • Adding JLL’s property management team to our
    virtual team adds an additional level of expertise and
    differentiates us from other management services.
  • Zachary: For us to be primed to grow, the most
    strategic partnership we can use is to be inside the largest and
    most progressive property management firm in the
    world. 

[22:05]  Zachary: What core
values do you have in your business?

  • We’re driving a culture of execution, everybody
    on the team is on the same mission to drive revenue, if we’re not
    driving revenue then we’re stagnant.
  • We have a very transparent approach, we have a
    mentality that we’re building this together and all have an equal
    voice. 
  • When we bring people on board they can
    individually see the impact they’re making and that drives them
    towards our common goal of producing revenue and growing as a
    business.

[24:49] Jerremy: Now you have
expanded to EMEA, what are the differences you have seen between
the US and Europe?

  • Europe is far more advanced and focused on
    emission reduction which has helped us fit in straight away. They
    have helped us learn what property teams and investors are doing to
    push sustainability efforts and what the US needs to do to
    progress.
  • Buildings in Europe already have the
    infrastructure in place with other smart technologies that we can
    integrate into, to feed our machine learning models and produce
    more data.
  • The market in EMEA is ready for a solution like
    Hank, whereas in North America we’re having to get the market
    ready.

[28:02] Zachary: What is next
for Hank?

  • We’re in the midst of a complete redesign of a
    new user interface, we want to give our customers a new evolution
    of what building automation can be without an additional
    cost.
  • We want to push forward on evolving this
    product whilst proving everything to our customers comes under one
    subscription with no additional fees, we want them to know that
    this is just an inherent part of our service that we will continue
    to improve.

L – Touch on
the main 
lessons you have learnt throughout your
career.

Jerremy: As long as you have got
hard work and dedication you are always going to push things
forward.

M – Please give
a
 mention to anyone / product / service.

Zachary: Rob Baker, he was an internal JLL employee that
gravitated towards our team, he was a project manager and now he is
involved in everything, he has been phenomenal to work
with.

R – What has
been the most  
rewarding  aspect of working in PropTech?

Zachary: Watching this product
come to fruition and having Jerremy’s team and our operations team
execute it successfully.

E – What are
you 
excited about in the future of Proptech?

Jerremy: I’m excited for
Proptech and sustainability to become the norm in the real estate
industry.

 

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