Profile: Country Managing Partner,
Deloitte Romania & Moldova
Turnover: N/A
Experience:
20 years in business & tax law
Alexandru Reff is the Country Managing Partner of the professional services firm Deloitte in Romania and Moldova, which provides services in audit, tax, legal, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, business processes as well as technology services and other related services, through more than 2.000 professionals.
Alex started his career in Deloitte as an intern in 1997 and held local and international roles in the Tax and Legal practice. Since 2017, he has been the Country Managing Partner of Deloitte Romania and Moldova. He is also the founder of Reff & Associates, one of the largest law firms in Romania and a member of the global Deloitte Legal network.
Over the years, Deloitte has been making an impact that matters on the Romanian real estate and construction market, playing a leading role in the successful completion of various real estate projects. In November 2020, Deloitte Romania surveyed executives and board members among Romanian commercial real estate owners, developers and investors through an online questionnaire, which focused on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic over the industry, the predictions for 2021 and the issues that companies need to focus in order to thrive in a post-pandemic era.
The vast majority of respondents stated that the price (86%) and the occupancy rate (71%) will increase or decrease depending on the type of the commercial property, according to the findings of Deloitte Romania Commercial Real Estate Survey 2021. The survey emphasizes that real estate companies need to create a digital connection with the online consumer, as almost half of the respondents mentioned that the rise of e-commerce will be a challenge for their business.
The survey also highlights that the necessity of technology usage, including trends like proptech, will long outlive the COVID-19 pandemic, as 80% of respondents believe technology to be the first and most important capability that needs to be developed even when the health crisis would have ended. PropTech, commonly known as an ecosystem of start-ups and emerging growing companies that offer technology-enabled, innovative products and services, emerged as the spearhead of a profound digital transformation roadmap for commercial real estate companies, in an industry that has been slowly leveraging technology. The proptech field has already raised over $43 billion in funding worldwide since 2012, according to Deloitte Real Estate Predictions 2020 study. The study also emphasizes that the future of proptech is promising, considering that the field has the same funding size as fintech did in 2013, a sector that registered a growth of 44.8% (CAGR) since then.
Even though the proptech sector it is at the early stage in Romania, the COVID-19 pandemic might have also raised the bar for them, as half of the surveyed respondents believed that this is the proper context for the emergence of new business models, including proptech.