IB Woman
Issue No. 29 - June/July 2006
Real pleasure in property achievement
Bobbette Scott
by Penelope Herbert
Bobbette Scott has come from a place where survival is paramount, and succeeding in a male dominated industry is tough.
Originally from Durban in South Africa, the director of asset services for commercial property agent, CB Richard Ellis, has crafted a 25-year property career against all odds —something she puts down to sheer determination.
The same determination is what brought Bobbette and her family to Australia in January 2000. With a struggling economy and crime in South Africa at an all-time high, Bobbette, fearing for the safety of her family, set about leaving her country and job of 13 years to start a new life abroad.
“I needed to get my family out of South Africa for our own safety and ultimately our survival,” Bobbette says.
“I was determined to move to Australia; I researched everything and everyone I knew to find out if they had contacts in Australia and eventually I found a ‘friend of a friend’s brother’ living in Adelaide.
“He was a complete stranger who kindly shared information about Adelaide and agreed to put my husband up for a few weeks while he searched for work as an electrician.”
The moment her husband secured a job, Bobbette and her children made the journey to Australia, cutting the usual lengthy visa application process from two years to just four months.
“Being so determined to leave as soon as possible we took short cuts wherever we could such as hand-delivering our documentation rather than posting it to speed up the process,” she explains.
With a solid career in property to her name in South Africa, it didn’t take long for Bobbette to follow in her husband’s footsteps and find a job in Adelaide.
Her successful career in property began at age 21 when she worked for a property developer while studying a Bachelor of Arts degree. Six years on, she moved to South Africa’s top property agency, JHI Real Estate, where she worked her w...
