After 14 years with Coronis, Karuna Dimelow has been appointed to the newly created role of chief operating officer. Dimelow hopes to streamline the business and create efficiencies between departments, but she also hopes to increase the number of women sales specialists rising through the company - just as she did.

Congratulations on your appointment to the role of COO of Coronis. What do you hope to achieve in the new role?

Thank you. There are quite a few things that I’m hoping to achieve in my first six months, but the overarching goal is to streamline the business and create a lot more efficiencies between our departments, especially at our headquarters. As the business continues to grow and evolve, I want to ensure that we all remain focused on making the buying, renting and selling process as easy as possible for all our clients.

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The COO role is a new role within Coronis. Why did the company feel it was necessary to create the role?

In recent years, all our departments have grown significantly so we’re at the stage where Andrew [Coronis] needs some support in managing them and ensuring we have perfect alignment throughout the business. The leadership team have built an aggressive growth plan to hit our goal of 40 offices in the next two years, therefore we decided the best structure moving forward was one person overseeing all departments of the business.

You began as an office manager with Coronis 14 years ago. What do you attribute your success to?

I actually came to Coronis 14 years ago with no real estate experience. I was the Queensland area manager of a clothing brand where I couldn’t grow any further. I thought real estate presented an interesting challenge and when I met Andrew, it was the right fit so I joined the team and became a sales specialist.

It wasn’t until 2006 that I stepped up to the office manager role when we opened Kelvin Grove and then area leader in 2012 when we had 15 offices.
 
In regards to what I attribute my success to, I believe it is staying focused on what you want to achieve 100 per cent of the time and having a clear ‘why’. For me, one of the most important things is always delivering the best service I possibly can – for both my team and my clients. I want to be successful in everything I do and proud of myself, therefore I keep pushing and keep improving to achieve that every day. 

What do you enjoy most about working in real estate?

The best thing about working in real estate is seeing people achieve their goals! Whether that’s a buyer or seller upsizing or downsizing or my team members buying their first home or investment, there’s no feeling like it. I think being able to take them on that journey and get them to where they want to be is really special and something to be proud of.

I look back on my career to date and can think of many touching moments and memories that I’ll have for a lifetime and I don’t know if you could create that in many other industries.

Is real estate a good profession for work / life balance and equal opportunity?

Real estate can be whatever you want it to be. If you want to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, you can, and if you only want to work eight hours a day, five days a week you can. It’s what you want to get out of it. But at the same time, there’s life – family, friends, travel, etc, so it’s flexible in that you can create the lifestyle you want to live.

In regards to equal opportunity, I definitely think it exists within the real estate industry. Whilst our company has a good split of males vs. females, our sales department is quite male dominant and that’s something that I personally want to address in this new role. Between Jill Hanlon, Jodi Ford, Tracey Kelly, Kristy Lord and myself, we have a strong female leadership team company-wide, but I’d love to see more female sales specialists coming through the ranks just as I did.

If there was one thing about the real estate industry you could change, what would it be?

The perception of real estate agents. I think the industry as a whole has lifted its game and become more professional but the general public’s perception hasn’t. The majority of real estate professionals truly want to look after their vendors, buyers, landlords or tenants and do the best job they possibly can so if more people trusted us, it’d be great. 

Where do you live now, and where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world?

I currently live in Ascot and it’s my number one choice in the world. I think Brisbane is a fantastic city to live in – I mean we have a great lifestyle, the weather is perfect, the café and restaurant scene is booming, traffic is minimal, we’ve got world class schools and the city’s infrastructure is thriving… what more could you ask for? This is exactly the place where I want to live and raise my children!

Read more about Brisbane real estate agency, Coronis:

Get to know the youngest-ever shareholder of Coronis, Tamika Kent

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Get to know Andrew Coronis