After over eight wonderful years, including seven incredible ones being involved with Myanmar, I bid a very fond farewell to Colliers International.

There are so many I wish to thank but I would like to make special mention of a number of people that have been pivotal in my journey to this point. First is Khun Patima Jeerapaet and Simon Landy who decided to take me on in 2009 to manage the research department for the Colliers Thailand office and then a couple of years later giving me the chance to develop the business in Myanmar and eventually set up office there.

The springboard for moving into Myanmar was first having a strong research department in Thailand and my appreciation to Khun Surachet Kongcheep who was invaluable in developing our research capabilities to new heights and reporting on new markets including Laos. He was also another pioneer in Myanmar, visiting with me on our first trips there and developing the first research reports for Yangon in 2011.

With a more proactive approach in 2012, we developed a small team to cover a wide range of projects and thanks to Theint Theint Thwin (Yati) for supporting me in this very busy time in the very early days. After setting up Colliers International Myanmar in 2013 I then hired Karlo Pobre to take over research & advisory responsibilities from me and he helped develop a great team of over 10 staff now providing by far the best and most consistent research in the country and helping to support so many of our clients to understand and engage the market here.

After landing our first property management consultancy project in 2014, I brought in Dan Davies for a month to cover temporarily for another manager but he ended up staying for much longer and then last year become MD to help take away the burden from me and move the company up to the next level. Colliers new office in Sule Square is a testament to his work for the company.

We have also had great support from Colliers regionally and thanks go to Piers Brunner the Asia Pacific CEO at the time of Colliers setting up in Myanmar and to David Hand the current CEO for providing further help and guidance in allowing Colliers Myanmar to grow. It was great to be part of a very dynamic and resourceful regional organization.

There is a great team at Colliers Myanmar and I am proud of you all and what you have achieved over the years. It was a great honour working with you and best wishes in your future careers. 

Also, I have appreciated our competitors over the years. Although Colliers is the only international real estate consultant in Myanmar we were kept on our toes by some feisty but fair real estate businesses.

It was always stimulating working with our many local and foreign clients. We are all in this frontier market together and I appreciated the mutual respect we have had for each other and your support during my time at Colliers.

Also grateful to all at the British Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar and it was very exciting to help to set up the chamber and thank you to Stephanie Ashmore for running the chamber so well in its first years when I was president and making my life easy and allowing me to concentrate on my day job.

Although perceptions in Myanmar are not positive at the moment I am bullish in the medium to long term for the country as many good things are happening behind the scenes economically, especially the industrialization of the country.

I will be taking a few months break to recharge the batteries and look forward to not participating in the next up-and-coming Yangon rainy season for once and hopefully enjoying an English summer. However my gusto for frontier markets remains undiminished, so I look forward to re-engaging soon whether it is in Myanmar or elsewhere. When the rain stops in our neck of the woods and the sun comes out again in 2018, I will return.

My best regards, 

 Tony

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