Forum Radio: Jan Garde

The luckiest amongst us will enjoy living to a grand old age, but are any of us looking forward to those years? Zurich member Jan Garde is on a mission to ensure that we are... As founder of The Embassies of Good Living, Jan is building mixed-use developments combining retail, leisure and serviced living in the hearts of the world's most amazing cities. The focus on 'contemporary hospitality' is all about what's possible rather than necessary. Most surprisingly, the entry point for their residential Ambassadors is often people aged 60+ rather than 80+.

Jan explains: 'Porsche, the car company, came in early as a shareholder, and they told us, ah, we think, there might be a chance that your customer is younger. So, we opened up a wait list to understand who's our customer, sort of what are their levels of interest, backgrounds, diversity, and age groups, and learned another really interesting bunch of lessons. Back then, let's say, on the global wait list, the average age was between 60 and 65. And now, going to market in Hamburg, we all of a sudden have people that come in at 21 and also at 78. And all joking aside, if you put both of them in the same room, they'll have a jolly good time.'

Music by Alex Vickers