Global Real Estate Strategy Manager

Service Line: Real Estate Strategy and Transactions
Reports to: Global of Real Estate Strategy Lead
Location: Mumbai / Bangalore, India.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

To help bring our vision to life, we are looking for a high calibre “Global Real Estate Strategy Manager” who will support with the real estate strategies globally, considering the current and future needs of the organization. A key aspect of the role is to ensure that real estate strategies allow the business to be productive and efficient, whilst delivering the best-in class experience.

Scope includes:

• Office, Residential, Land, Supply Chain, R&D, Retail and others.
• Owned, leased and 3P managed sites are within the scope of this role.
• Support, as needed, transactions, including but not limited to, acquisitions (buy, lease, built-to-suit), divestments (sale, lease exits), and other portfolio related activities (such as, renewals, rental etc.).
• Role is supported by a team (Unilever FTE and 3P).
• Ensure that Unilever’s governance and policies are adhered to.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE

• Understand business units’ plans, space demands and real estate market trends and provide thought leadership in strategy sessions with business units to drive the best solutions considering all relevant occupancy scenarios.
• Proactively manage occupancy costs by understanding business units’ demands, market trends, hybrid ways of working, and space requirements to implement the best occupancy strategies and commercial options for the business (including sale/lease backs, adjustments of rent to market, etc.).
• Drive the Logistics Real Estate strategy aligned with the global guidelines and governance in place and drive wider support for the Supply Chain real estate portfolio.
• Evaluate the optimal balance of leased and owned facilities through financial analyses of alternative lease and ownership strategies, based on agreed assumptions and accounting criteria.
• Prepare comprehensive business cases that will be utilized to obtain consensus and approval from Business Units and Senior Management.
• Drive freehold divestments and acquisitions and any business activities (such as, M&A, separation).
• As required, step-in to manage other aspects of the real estate portfolio.
• Leading the supplier lease administration team, ensuring compliance, accuracy and timely delivery of all reporting, while also mentoring the team as required.
• Develop Global portfolio strategies and C-suite ready presentations to support decision making around financial impact of divestments, acquisitions and savings.
• Drive special projects, including strategic changes to the portfolio that are in line with business plans.
• Ensure global adherence to standardised processes and policies through continuous monitoring.
• Lead technology function of the team through innovation and more efficient tools and tech. platforms.
• Manage the Global contracts with 3rd parties, including performance framework.
• Support with budget management & tracking.

EXPERIENCES & QUALIFICATIONS
Necessary Experience & Qualifications

• Relevant Degree or equivalent experience in real estate strategy and transactions.
• Excellent analytical and communication skills (oral and written), advanced Excel skills, presentation packages (PowerPoint), interrogating databases (systems and web-based systems). Detail oriented and be able to look at the big picture and understand the business plans and trends.
• Experience in the engagement of key, senior level stakeholders, along with proven ability to influence and manage relationships with those stakeholders.
• Be able to have a high-level view and roll-up the sleeves to do the transactions themselves.
• Significant experience in taking divergent pieces of information, crafting clear, concise business plans and recommendations, and then land these recommendations to the business stakeholders.
• Strong financial acumen required to review strategic plans and scenarios.
• The ability to work a-synchronically with diverse groups.

Preferred Experience & Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience.
• Experience driving change through a matrixed, complex organization.
• Experience leading cross functional teams charged with creating and implementing operational methods that are vastly different from current methods.
• Storyteller who is confident with leading presentations and landing a narrative with facts backing the information. Agile advocate who has embraced agile project delivery and agile working.
• Fluent spoken and written English. Other languages would be an advantage.

SKILLS

• Real Estate (RE) industry knowledge including the following:
• Best practices;
• Contracting methods;
• Service Level Agreement methodologies;
• Strengths and weaknesses of third-party delivery models;
• Key global, regional service providers, strengths and weaknesses of those providers;
• Real Estate transactions

Previous experience

• Managing a regional lease administration program.
• Leading a strategic real estate portfolio planning program, and successful experience tying corporate real estate objectives to business objectives.
• With office portfolio, Logistics and Industrial projects, including supporting on the strategy stage of the projects.
• Solid track record & experience in managing global wide-scale projects, transformation/transition projects & budgets.
• To manage suppliers, ensuring the Services delivered by Strategic Partners meet the cost and service level expectations and requirements of the Unilever business. Experience in developing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and managing them across geographical regions.
• Working regionally, bringing understanding and insight into the needs of other regions to the development of these service operations.
• Extensive experience in analysing the “current situation” to develop strategies to drive efficiencies.
• Experience in the engagement of key, senior level stakeholders, along with proven ability to influence and manage relationships with those stakeholders.
• Working with global / regional teams in diverse & challenging contexts
• In managing sensitive material and maintain the highest level of confidentiality.
• Working with cross-functional collaboration and ability to demonstrate process improvement.
• Working with Key Stakeholders: Global Head of Real Estate, Real Estate team in markets, Global Logistics Planning Lead, Key Business Partners (Internal/External), Finance – Performance management, Global Workplace Strategy team, and Global M&A team.

Behaviours

• Self-starter with an ownership mentality.
• Hungry for growth and excited for a challenge.
• Demonstrate attention to detail and must be highly organized.
• Deep thinker: keeping on top of trends, new ways of working and industry research.
• Energetic, action and people oriented.
• A critical element of this team’s culture is to be a team player who works for the success of the business and the wider team.
• Strong analytical and organizational capabilities.
• Effective communication and presenting skills.
• Able to lead projects and manage project through prioritization and time management.

Leadership Skills

• Passion for high performance - Takes personal responsibility and accountability for execution and results. Generates intensity and focus to motivate people to deliver results at speed.
• Business acumen - Understand the business in-depth, and be able to work with a forward-looking, solution mindset.
• Personal mastery - Sets high standards for themselves. Actively builds one’s own wellbeing and resilience