For Yorke Abernethie, Business Development Director at Leaflike, the job starts long before anyone mentions a project. It is built in the conversations that happen months, sometimes years, before a pitch ever lands on his desk, and it runs on a simple belief: trust has to be earned before it can be asked for.
Yorke always knew he would end up in the family business. He had other offers on the table when he left school, but the long-term case for joining Leaflike outweighed everything else on it, and it is a decision he has never once regretted.
Day to day, that means a lot of outbound work: phone calls, online outreach, and face-to-face meetings with quantity surveyors, contractors, designers, and hotel groups, building relationships long before there is a project to pitch for. From there it becomes pitch development and tendering, making sure what Leaflike promises a client is exactly what gets delivered. Increasingly, it also means structure: building the pipeline properly, sharpening how Leaflike presents its methodology, and making sure marketing and sales are pulling in the same direction rather than working in separate lanes.
That structure sits behind a broader shift in how Leaflike positions itself, one Yorke is genuinely excited about. The move is away from being seen as a landscaping contractor and towards something closer to a trusted partner in how a building’s outdoor space actually functions for the people using it, with Curate, Orchestrate, Cultivate as a proper methodology rather than a strapline. St Regis London is the clearest expression of that ambition so far: not a maintenance job, but landscaping woven into a luxury hotel conversion from the ground up, spanning the main terrace and hospitality planting throughout. It is the level Yorke wants Leaflike to be known for.
Being part of a family business shapes how he works, too. The biggest benefit to a client, he says, is that the owners are directly involved throughout the whole process. That delivers better results, and it means things get done quicker and to a higher standard, with no layer between the decision-maker and the job.
Ask Yorke what actually makes someone good at bringing in new hospitality and commercial clients, and he is direct: credibility that is earned, not claimed. Anyone can say they understand a client’s world. The difference is whether you have actually experienced their pain points – the gap between what was pitched and what gets built, budgets slipping, nobody taking ownership when things go wrong. If you get good at spotting that early, timing takes care of itself.
Outside of the phone calls and meetings, Yorke is in the gym most days, training and taking cold plunges, which helps him de-stress and switch off from work. Weekends are for the countryside, the Cotswolds especially, and for making proper time to socialise with family and friends.
If you’d like to find out more about how Leaflike designs, creates and nurtures living landscapes from concept to completion, please get in touch.