Canvas is doing great things. Acquiring great new buildings with a team of great people to power them forward. Progress is the name of the game. And no one at Canvas understands progress better than Lianne Halliday, General Manager at Canvas. We meet to talk about the journey that brought her to Canvas, what’s happened since, and dip into her greatest guilty pleasure.
According to Google, “Lianne is a name of French, Latin, and British origins with the curious meaning, "to twine around." To me, this made perfect sense when I met Lianne Halliday. She’s assertive, social agile, incredibly warm-hearted, and totally unforgettable. Lianne has climbed every rung of her professional ladder with skill, confidence blooming with each new move and an ever-growing thirst to prove herself to the world. I imagine that’s why she’s been appointed to head up the biggest, most coveted building in the Canvas collection to date, 88 Kingsway, Holborn.
I meet Lianne on a hot July afternoon at her new office. I walk up the marble staircase to the communal space on the first floor. Luxe retro furnishings and inviting booths tempt me to sit, and I see the pool table at the far end hosting a game. The atmosphere is calm. It might be the open plan flow of the room. It might be the light pouring in from the vast windows. Lianne appears from her office. She’s fizzing with positive energy as always and it’s infectious. We sit and chat for a while and then head out into the blazing sunshine and walk 15 mins down the road to the Kimpton Fitzroy London in Russell Square.
We step into the cool vaulted halls of this grand space with enormous chandeliers sparkling above and the ornate mosaic zodiac signs beneath our feet. Somehow, Lianne looks very much at home here. She says, “I got quite used to this kind of thing when I worked at the V&A.” And that’s where our conversation began. We head down the corridor to the restaurant and I ask:
What did the journey look like that lead you to Canvas?
“Well, I worked in hospitality for years and I could not get out of it. I was the head waiter, manager, whatever. I was all of them! Started from the bottom and worked my way up. But I just couldn’t get out of it and it was really upsetting because I just I hated it by the end. I was like, I’m so good at my job but there’s only so many tables you can wait on.
“So I took a big old pay cut to go and work at the V&A working on ‘Projects’, but I knew I couldn’t go any further because it wasn’t the right fit. That’s where I met Tsubi (now, Property Development Manager at Canvas). She told me that Canvas did ‘Projects’, but it’s called General Management and that’s what she did at the time. I said it sounded so similar to my role and she knew the east cluster of Canvas were looking for a deputy. I was like, okay, great I’ll go for it. I got the job and then I worked my arse off because I wanted to be a General Manager. I want to be in charge of the ship and I was obsessed with getting to know everyone.”
We both pause to order burgers and I ask, what made you want to stay at Canvas? What made you think this is where I want to grow?
“It was the freedom and trust.
“When I got to Canvas I was like, if you just give me a chance. Oren (one of the founding brothers) gave me some words of encouragement, “At Canvas, we all work really hard and we love what we do. As long as you try your absolute best in all you do, you’ll achieve anything”. And I remember thinking at that moment, I will work so hard that you’ll never have to worry about me – ever! But then when I started I was worried. Thinking maybe I’m not doing things quick enough, but everything I seemed to do, they loved it, and it was so nice. Oren said, “Oh right, you’re the quirky one”, and that felt good because I felt my creativity had actually been seen and the weirdness that I’ve always kind of had to dim, I don’t have to dim here. I’ve had it so many times where it’s like ‘you’re too much, you’re this, you’re that’, whereas in Canvas, people I don’t think I’m too much.
“My CEOs have given me the chance to be here, meet all these really fantastic people and progress as quickly as I did. I mean, I worked my ass off, but it was really quick and having that trust in someone. Then that day came and they said, right, this is going to be a mega building and we’re going to put you in charge of it. That was cool.
“Another reason that makes me stay is the people. These guys feel like my family. I recently went through a break up and everyone was amazing. Tash (Natasha Bell, Head of Central Operations at Canvas), would sit down and say ‘You alright, girl?’ and people just doing little things like that. Sometimes I’d just need a rant or a cry. I needed them and they were there. And that’s what got me over it all so quickly, especially considering how big it was and how much relationships can affect you at work. It was because of these guys.”
