From portfolio management to sales leadership

David Kitai  00:00:08 

The financial services sector needs new ideas, fresh perspectives and rising stars. That's why WP publishes its annual Top 40 under 40, celebrating the young professionals breathing new life into this industry. Hello and welcome to a very special edition of WPTV celebrating our top 40 under 40 list. Today, we are lucky to be joined by Mustafa Bukhari, National Team Lead at Skyline Wealth Management Incorporated. Welcome Mustafa, and congratulations on your 

Mustafa Bukhari  00:00:35 

Thank you, David for having me here. 

David Kitai  00:00:39 

So Mustafa, let's start with a little bit of your own background. What? What are the experiences and influences that kind of kick started your interest in in the financial services sector? 

Mustafa Bukhari  00:00:49 

Yeah, so I mean, that actually takes me back to, I would say, 2008 I was studying at the University of Western Ontario, and that's when, really, when the financial crisis took hold the in the US, the subprime mortgage crisis. And really, that sort of, you know, piqued my interest as to what the heck is going on in the world around us today, and how could something like this happen? And more importantly, like, how is this going to impact, you know, just sort of everyday individuals out there, and, you know, how are they going to manage their retirement savings? And so really, it was that particular event that kind of, you know, piqued my interest in wanting to learn more about the world of investments. 

David Kitai  00:01:34 

That's fascinating, definitely a challenging time to start, to start exploring the prospect of financial services, but brave, I would say, to try to jump in right at that moment. But then there's a pivot that happened in your career, if I'm if I'm correct, there was a sort of a shift from portfolio management to sales leadership, which is what you're in now. What? How did that shift come about?  

Mustafa Bukhari  00:01:59 

Yeah, so, you know, I had this, you know, plan. You know, when you're young, you sort of have these, have these grand plans of, you know, we'll become a financial advisor, you know, we'll grow, book a business, and then, you know, we'll pivot to the full service world, and we'll become a portfolio manager and, and so, you know, early, the early part of my career, I spent some time, you know, working as a mutual fund sales rep. I worked in a full service environment. I supported portfolio managers, and so I held a variety of different sales roles. And really it was, I was sort of quite successful being being in those sales roles, and I quickly learned that a lot of my colleagues were coming to me and wanting to learn, you know, how am I being so successful in sales? And I was sort of drawn to, then the coaching side of the business. And so then I took on a full time sales coaching role when I was at Bank of Nova Scotia, and I really enjoyed it. And that's really when I had that light bulb moment that, you know, sales leadership is something that I'm really drawn to, and so that I started to focus on roles that would sort of build the skill sets that would be required for me to be successful as a sales leader.  

David Kitai  00:03:15 

That's fascinating. But as they say, No man is an island, and no one, no one, becomes a leader without having experienced some, some views of leadership themselves. So can you talk me through some of who your sort of key mentors and role models have been as you have you made this shift into leadership and how they've kind of shaped your own leadership style? 

Mustafa Bukhari  00:03:35 

Yeah, no, absolutely. I would say I would have, you know, two real mentors in my life. You know, one is my cousin Ali near who today is a C level executive. And so, you know, he's my older cousin. And you know, throughout my career, in fact, even in university, I would often, you know, give him a call and sort of just, you know, share my ideas. And I just, I just needed a sounding board of, you know, like, you know, this is what I'm thinking about. And, you know, this is sort of my next step. I remember when I was in university, I started this painting gig, you know, joined a student worth painting, you know, learning about, you know, how to be an entrepreneur. And I was kind of, you know, afraid of, you know, taking on that, that that particular challenge. But, you know, I spoke to my cousin, and he sort of gave me the confidence that, you know, it'd be a great, great experience. And so, you know, throughout my career, you know, use just a strong sounding board, and then professionally, my current leader today, Ray pun, whom I actually met way back in 2015 when I was at Bank of Nova Scotia, he was my director at that point in time, and and we sort of stayed in touch, you know, throughout our careers. And when I was looking for for more or less sales leadership opportunity, I really articulated that that message to him and lo and behold, an opportunity came at Skyline. And, you know, here we are, three years later, you know, working very, very closely together. 

David Kitai  00:05:06 

Yeah. So leadership is this fascinating sort of quality, and it can contain so much and so many different myriad traits and characteristics, you know. And we'll talk about the sort of the big ones, the, you know, the empathy and the the motivation and all of that. But, but what are some maybe underrated skills that you see in leadership and in motivating a team towards that kind of high performance goal? 

Mustafa Bukhari  00:05:35 

And look, I'm very fortunate that I get to lead a very high performing team. You know, we work in the world of investments. It's a very high stress environment. So, you know, my style really is to lead with kindness. You know, I find that, you know, everyone is so, you know, wound up in their day to day lives. And you know, the the pressures of work that you know every now and then I, you know, I think people just need to sit back and, you know, relax, crack a joke. So I find, you know, what helps me sort of lead the team is to sort of, you know, have that at the forefront of just, you know, being kind. Let's Be kind to one another. It's a very difficult world out there, and I find leading with kindness, you know, goes a long way in terms of motivating individuals to be the best and bring their best selves to work each and every single day.  

David Kitai  00:06:30 

Yeah, that's a that's a fascinating response, and I think runs against the popular perception of sales leadership that maybe is too informed by that Alec Baldwin speech in the Glengarry, Glen Ross movie. But a little bit of gentleness and a little bit of kindness can go, can go a long way, and making sure people are motivated and that they, you know, they care about the work that's being done. But there's also a degree to which you know, as a leader in a team, you need to make sure that team is on the ball, and you need to make sure that that team knows their stuff. So how do you ensure that your team remains engaged and well informed on the subject of industry trends and the the assets that you're working with? 

Mustafa Bukhari  00:07:13 

I know great question, you know, connectivity, and something that I put into action on a weekly basis is we every, every Monday, you know, we have our Monday afternoon weekly call. And part of that call is to, you know, not just talk about, you know, productivity and sort of, you know, a week in review. And I look forward, but you know, each member of the team on a weekly basis delivers a market update. And really, this market update is an opportunity for that individual to present to the team to educate the team on something that they learned within the industry, you know, the previous week. You know, we like to sort of start, you know, with macro level trends. Get into the, you know, public markets get into the private markets get into REIT related industry news, and I find that, you know, having, you know, somebody with your team, delivering this information sort of creates a better, you know, environment, a better learning environment, better, you know, peer calling, peer to peer learning, rather than me getting up there and sort of like just downloading information onto the team. I find that if a member of the team sort of speaks to one another, you know, we're going to sort of learn from each other.  

David Kitai  00:08:26 

Yeah, but you know, in those conversations and in engaging over over these assets, I think the notable piece is what you're gleaning and what your whole team is seeing about the assets that you work with. So I'm curious now, Mustafa, as to what you're seeing in the REIT space. You know what major trends be they macro, micro, Canadian, global and even challenges in the REIT market. Are you now seeing that you think financial advisors need to be aware of?  

Mustafa Bukhari  00:08:53 

Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think investor sentiment is now shifting back towards real estate. I think we're coming out of a very difficult interest rate environment in the last call it 12 to 24 months, but now we're in a rate cutting cycle. And so there will be an announcement this week on where interest rates on how much of interest rate cut we're going to see, and we know that it has a positive impact on real estate. And so, you know, really, what I would say to, you know, those tuning in, you know, looking to explore, you know, various, you know, real estate asset classes is to look into that like, you know, am I investing in multi res? Am I investing in industrial, open air, retail, you know, really look into the real estate asset class, and look at the trends and the tailwinds that sort of support those asset classes right now. You know, immigration is a strong tailwind that we're seeing. And as we continue to see, you know, population growth, you know, we continue to see, you know, our you know, call it the growth of the secondary markets here in Canada, we continue to see, you know. A rent rise. As you know, the affordability crisis continues to move. So there's a lot of, I would say, you know, various you know, factors at play, you know, but, but ultimately, I'd say investor sentiment towards real estate has shifted in real estate's favor, and it's a great time to invest. 

David Kitai  00:10:20 

Yeah, no, for sure, that's, I mean, a fascinating view, and it's always a an asset class that grips Canadians attention. We have a bit of a national obsession with real estate, so it's interesting to be able to get that, you know, that that inside line. But you know, going back to your management style, post COVID, there have been a lot of challenges that managers and leaders of any stripe have had to deal with. Right a massive overhaul in the way we work and where we work, an overhaul in, you know, markets just incredible upheaval. Changes in, you know, individuals attitudes, changes in moral outlooks, changes in our politics. I could go on and I shouldn't, but, you know, I guess, I guess. How are you addressing and navigating all of those deep challenges that seem so apparent today? 

Mustafa Bukhari  00:11:15 

Yeah, look, it's, it's been difficult, right? You know, it COVID. During COVID, it was a work from home environment. And how do you lead a team when you can't see them physically? And you know they were, you know, that definitely posed some challenges. But I have to say, you know, technology really helped. And I think there was, you know, an acceleration in terms of the adoption of the technology that was available to us, and so things like using zoom or Microsoft teams stay connected through video chats really helped. But then we transitioned out of COVID into this post COVID world where we moved into, call it more of a hybrid environment, you know, where we're trying to bring people back into the office, but we still have, you know, the ability to leverage sort of technology. And it really, you know, what came out of that, in my opinion, is, you know, the flexibility, right? That if I just simply not feeling well today, you know, rather than, you know, take on, you know, a sick day, it's no, I have the technology set up at my home office, I can continue to work from the home office. So, so I found that, you know, flexibility really came out of, you know, the post pandemic world, and now we're sort of transitioning back into, you know, in in office environment, which also poses some challenges. As you know, you you have individuals that you know were hyper productive working from home, and how do you reconcile that with having coming back into the office with, let's say, commute times now, now coming back into the forefront. And you know, I really have to give a shout out to our CEO, Jason castle. You know, who came out and said to us that, look, I'm willing to sacrifice productivity in order to continue to build on culture. And you know when he said that, you know that that really resonated to me, you know, building culture, and that was something that was lost. I mean, as much as you know we were productive, we were, you know, just employees, and, you know, not really colleagues. And now coming back into the office, you know that that, you know, call it water cooler talk, and that, you know, spurring on ideas. I'm seeing it in action, which is beautiful, you know, like I'm seeing, you know, colleagues come into the office and, you know, we're brainstorming and we're solving problems, and we're moving on with the day, something that was we weren't able to do in that, you know, remote or hybrid environment. And so, you know, how are we able to sort of effectively, you know, move our team into this, into this transition I find, as a leader, it's crucial to sort of lead by example. And so I'm in the office, right? So I'm coming into the office. It's not something like, Hey, I want you guys to come up to the office, but I'm gonna, you know, sit at sit at home and work from home, you know, as a sales team, ultimately, you know, we go where the work is. So if you have client meetings, well, you know, if the client wants to meet at their house? Well, our team will be at the house if they want to be that coffee shop or at their office, or if they want to come to our office, we'll go really where our clients want us to be. But if we don't have client meetings, we want them to come back into the office, because this is the hub, and this is where, you know, new ideas, and this is where you know, where we continue to build on that culture. I mean, so and so that we're actually quite excited about opening up a new satellite office in the in the near term, because our team is probing it, we sort of recognize, you know, where our teams are located. It, and so we're, we're addressing those needs. So it's great to see that, you know, our organization is sort of understanding the needs of the individuals, but also understanding the needs of the organization and trying to pair, you know, those two things together.  

David Kitai  00:15:15 

Yeah, that's, that's a fascinating view, and I think one that resonates with a lot of the folks who are, who are going to be watching this, because, you know, this industry, again, has seen so much of that dislocation and that loss of the team ethos, the the, you know, the camaraderie, the coming back from a meeting and unpacking it with your colleague just over a quick chat, you know, by the water cooler, to bring that back, I think, is a really fascinating and interesting way to approach it. You know, what is inherently a new working environment, but where that old way of working still holds a lot of value? Um, that's kind of a final question, and maybe it's a little strength, because we're doing this as a top 40. Under 40. You're a young rising star, Mustafa, you're you're one of the young leaders. But nature of the game, there's always someone who's coming up. There's always someone who's entering the field for the first time. What advice would you offer to those individuals who are just getting started, who are getting started in financial services, and those who want to end up in a kind of a sales leadership role like the one you're in? 

Mustafa Bukhari  00:16:18 

Yeah, you know, great question. Look, I think a couple of points come to mind, right? I think networking is super important, right? Like, you know, leveraging tools like LinkedIn and, you know, I often have this view that you know, you don't, you know, you're always building your network, right? Because when you need your network, then you have it, right? You don't, you know, you don't look at yourself and say, well, I need to start leveraging my network. How do I build my network? No, building your network is sort of, it's a daily practice, right? And so what I would say to do entrance coming into the market is to, you know, look at, look at your network, right? Like, go on LinkedIn and start to sort of research industries that you want to look work at, and if it's financial services, we'll start to look at the various companies that you want to work for. And once you identify those companies, we'll start to look at your network and see, well, do you know any leaders within your network, or other individuals employees within your network that work for those companies to start to reach out and start to have those coffee chats. I think it's crucial to sort of, you know, put yourself out there. It does feel a bit awkward, you know, reaching out to individuals that you may not have a strong connection with, but, but it's crucial, right? Because it's crucial to hear from them, you know, what worked for them why they like the industry, and not to say it's going to shape your view. But once you talk to you know, a whole lot of different individuals, you're going to sort of come to your own viewpoint on how you feel about that particular organization or their particular journey, and the journey that you're going to you're about to embark on. The second point that I would say, outside of networking, if you are committed to financial services, would be to look at the, you know, Canadian Securities Institute. You know, I often joke with my with with my wife, that I feel like I studied more outside of university than I did during university, and it was because I was committed to our industry of financial services. And so, you know, through the Canadian Securities Institute, you know, your starting point really, is the Canadian Securities course, because that is the framework for our industry. You will learn about the regulatory environment, you will learn about the various asset classes. You will learn a bit about everything within the industry. And then it's the subject matters of the chapters that you know you were really, you know, drawn to, well, that's where you can't. That's the career path that you're going to have to take that right? Like, is it front office? Is it mid office? Is it back office? Is it is it public securities? Is it private securities? But really, the Canadian Securities, course, gives that broad based framework. So my recommendation to anyone you starting out in the industry, would be to take a look at that. Course.  

David Kitai  00:19:05 

Okay, that's great advice. Mustafa. I mean, that's that's concrete steps, and it's high level thinking. I enjoy them both in equal measure. So thank you for that, and unfortunately, though, that is all the time we have today. So thank you so much for taking the time and for sharing all your insights with us today. 

Mustafa Bukhari  00:19:21 

My pleasure, David, thank you for having me on  

David Kitai  00:19:25 

And thank you to all of our viewers for tuning in for WPTV I have been David Kitai, have a great rest of your day.