Ismail Gafoor is the chief executive of PropNex Realty, Singapore’s largest homegrown real estate agency with over 7,000 sales staff. Gafoor came from humble beginnings; he helped his father deliver newspapers and run his provision shop as a child. He joined the army to do his National Service as a teenager, and opted to sign on in the armed forces, where he rose to the rank of colonel.

He established a real estate firm, Nooris Consultants, with his wife not long after leaving the army in 1996. The company formed a partnership with Prulink a few years after, and others followed before the PropNex network was launched in July 2000. Today, PropNex also operates offices in regional markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia.

In 2020, its PropNex Realty subsidiary launched a SG$7.3 million career-enhancement package to equip its sales agents with skills to perform “in the new norms of the real estate industry”. The company also announced a partnership with local broadcaster Mediacorp and property portal 99.co to organise the Singapore Property Show 2020 virtually.

Last year, PropNex recorded revenues of $957.5 million, $65.1 million of which was net profit—a 108.6 per cent jump from the year before. The group also acquired a 70 per cent stake in online marketplace Ovvy for $1 million to expand its footprint in proptech, and in January this year expanded into the Good Class Bungalow (GCB) market.