Last time, I talked about how the
May edition of LEADER Magazine is threaded with examples of how corporate real estate (CRE) people have more clout than ever over key business drivers like talent, productivity or speed to market. One example involves Nokia working with CBRE on stepping up to play a leadership role in mergers and acquisitions. The M&A leadership example keeps rolling on, because shortly thereafter, we saw Oracle present another strong case for CRE to play the 'point man' in M&A's. Michelle Myer, head of Americas Real Estate at Oracle, talked about the company's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The huge integration process took a lot of due diligence, Michelle explained during our first-ever Senior Leader in Corporate Real Estate (SLCR) Forum. It took place at the start of the recent CoreNet Global Chicago Midwest Summit.
Sustainability is also another great example of how CRE's leadership impact keeps increasing inside the corporate enterprise. The May LEADER related how Deutsche Bank's Holger Hagge and Nils Noack influenced the green retrofit of the company's twin headquarters towers in Frankfurt, and in a separate story with Susan Buchanan of VFA, how we can green existing facilities into the capital planning process. Well, the Senior Leader Forum in Chicago offered another appropriate capper to these scenarios with a very interesting presentation by Google's Anthony Ravitz on the company's "Living Building Challenge." It starts with the core belief that Google values its employees more than its buildings.
Click here to check out all of the presentations we've gathered from the Chicago Midwest Global Summit.
Michelle and Anthony's cases to senior-level industry professionals in Chicago resonated around the leadership theme so much, that you'll see them featured in the July installment of my Industry Tracker column, which will run in the mid-summer edition of LEADER Magazine. Keep an eye out!