Thomas van Straubenzee co-runs the Private Office of the world’s largest independent real estate consultancy, Knight Frank, where, alongside Rory Penn, he advises on the property interests of the firm’s high-net-worth client base.

A 16-year veteran in the prime real estate sector, van Straubenzee brings a wealth of experience – and contact book with a considerable net-worth of its own – to a consultancy which understands better than most that ‘who you know’ unlocks the kind of doors ‘what you know’ sometimes cannot.

Similarly, van Straubenzee and Penn also understand this relationship is reciprocal; Knight Frank has established itself as a forward-thinker in real estate by embracing technological innovation and investment in its people in a way, perhaps, its competitors that flank it have not.

Van Straubenzee says the foundation of what makes his corner of the consultancy – and the wider firm by proxy – successful, is that the investment advice they offer is ‘sensible, informed and open-minded’. Harnessing the knowledge and full width of expertise an agency such as Knight Frank can offer, he says, can make the marriage between wealth and property much more straightforward.