The Leader - January/February 2008 - (Page 60) e x ecU t i v e p r o F il e Jones Lang LaSalle’s Ed Noha: Elevating Real Estate in the Eyes of the C-Suite BY richard kadzis aNd meGaN mccaNN L abor, and how it relates to corporate real estate, weighs heavily on Ed Noha’s mind. Important forces like globalization, outsourcing, sustainability, and talent are all converging to make corporate real estate (CRE) more important, he says. “But, I think labor is particularly important,” Noha, Managing Director at Jones Lang LaSalle, says. “You have companies that are competing for their work forces – you get HR involved and you get senior leadership involved – and you start talking about big bucks. So, to me, all those factors are going to continue to make real estate more important to the C-Suite and I think it will give us the seat at the table that we’ve been looking for.” But more and more the talent leading CRE organizations is coming from outside real estate. “It seems that every other new head of a real estate organization is coming from outside,” he says. “And, I think that’s one factor that will help us elevate the skills of the real estate organization. Because if the C-Suite is expecting more of CRE, then CRE needs to be able to deliver and be able to speak their language.” He says that there are functions that need to stay within CRE organizations and there are functions that are very easily outsourced. “So, if you are looking at what skills are staying within the real estate organizations, they are a lot of the strategic planning and relationship management functions. And those require the skills, quite frankly, of a consultant: financial acumen, consulting skills, planning. You’ve got to know the business in order to effectively be a relationship manager.” Noha sees a shift in service delivery from individual functions like transac- tions, projects, location advisory services, and workplace services delivered separately in the past. Now, his clients are asking for broader, more integrated sets of services. “We are starting to get a number of projects on our consulting team where the client might ask for a master plan in a city and as part of that master plan you get into location and labor issues and you also get into workplace issues,” Noha explains. “Which, again, matches the elevation of real estate in the eyes of the C-Suite. I think there are a number of companies, particularly in the Rust Belt cities, which are in places that are not growing or attracting young talent. People are moving to where they want to live and then they look for a job.” He cites a recent client who found it couldn’t attract the talent it needed in its headquarters city. “So we looked at where they might 2 0 0 8 the le ade r 60 J aN Ua rY / F e B rUa r Y
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