How would you describe yourself: landlord, developer or property investor? Well, the response from my initial question to Fiona Talbot was unusually understated and a long way from the ‘fake it till you make it’ mantra espoused by some property education gurus.

“I am a boring asset builder, that’s what I do,” said Fiona. “I see myself as a technician-entrepreneur, focusing on consistently refining the systems and processes that I have built my property businesses on over many years.”

I met up with Fiona at her offices in Ely, an unpretentious market town to the north east of Cambridge to talk about how she has evolved her property investing strategy over a 20-year period here in the UK.

“I bought my first buy to let back then,” says Fiona. “And yet I feel I am only now realising what I really want to do with my company and all the properties owned within it. Historically, it’s fair to say that I have been a multi-strategy investor, mostly reacting to market opportunities as I have seen them appear, such as simple buy to lets, HMOs, and commercial property investments.”

As Fiona explains, she was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia but decided to travel abroad after completing her university degree.

“I completed a degree from the University of Melbourne and could have pursued a corporate career but instead decided to experience life overseas. I worked in Japan for a few years in the ski industry and then moved to the UK in 1998 with my (now) husband who I met while he was in the US Air Force.