Meet Giovanni Palavicini of Fronteras Commercial Real Estate
Today we’d like to introduce you to Giovanni Palavicini.
Giovanni, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My father has been here in the US for 50+ years. He grew up in the projects of Little Mexico near the American Airlines Center in Dallas. As a young man, he met my mother in Mexico and she moved to the US after they were wed. My parents wanted my sister and I to have a better life than my father had grown up so most my education was in private schools. I graduated from Jesuit College Preparatory, Dallas Baptist University with my Bachelors and the University of Texas- Arlington with my Masters in Real Estate. I have been in the commercial real estate as a for over 17 years. The first 10 years of my career were in retail. For the first 5 of those years, I worked with national and regional restaurants like Brinker, Darden, Buffalo Wild Wings and Gloria’s. The second 5 years of my retail career were focused on the Hispanic market. Being born in Mexico and being immersed in the culture and language made it a natural fit. During my concentration in the Hispanic markets is when I started Fronteras Commercial Real Estate. A little over 7 years ago I went in-house as a Regional Real Estate Director with Regus. During my time with Regus, I learned about the quickly evolving office industry and growing flexible workspace segment. At Regus, my territory was as small as Texas and as much as the entire US and parts of Canada helping grow the Regus brand.
Since leaving Regus a couple years ago, I have done some consulting for Southwest Airlines as they consolidated their real estate, airplane and other assets into one asset management platform. Simultaneously, I continued to work in the flexible workspace industry. I have helped a startup executive suite operator, Executive Workspace, acquire and organically grow from no locations to 18 locations in Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin in just over 1 year. I am also working with other operators throughout the US. I enjoy the opportunity to work with companies to understand their goals, create a real estate strategy and then implement it.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
In all honesty, I have been extremely blessed in my professional career. Personally, I have struggled with anxiety and depression my entire adult life. I put so many expectations on myself growing up that it was difficult to keep up with the bar I consistently kept raising. I took on the weight of being everything to everyone. People knew and know that if they ever need anything they can come to me and I will do my best to help in any way that I can.
It has been tough at times, but I would not change my journey for anything. I have been lucky and blessed to have loved, encouraged and inspired many throughout the years. I know I could not have done that if my journey had been smooth. My mission is to help people to overcome fear and anxiety and live a life of passion and purpose through the Lord by my example, leadership and love.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Fronteras Commercial Real Estate – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Fronteras Commercial Real Estate is a boutique brokerage firm focused on personal attention to every client. I am currently focused on the flexible workspace and retail industries. I help companies and individuals to understand their goals, create a strategy and implement it. One of my clients recently said, “so you are a life coach and real estate expert.” I consider myself an extension of my client’s businesses and in order to do the best job for them, I need to understand their personal and professional goals and desires.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The flexible workspace industry continues to evolve and grow so in the near future my focus is helping operators with their business strategies. I foresee there will be a lot of mergers, acquisitions and even operators who fail because they do not make good business decisions with their real estate portfolios.
Contact Info:
Phone: 214. 566.9546
Email: gp@fronterasre.com