We are looking to hire South Asia, Middle East, Turkey, and North Africa Real Estate Lead (Mumbai, India)
Job Purpose:
The role will be responsible to manage Unilever’s South Asia, Middle East, Turkey and North Africa portfolio. This role is part of the Global Workplace team and would report into the Global Workplace Director. It is a senior role in Unilever, where this role would be instrumental in enabling us to respond to changing business needs, minimising the costs and taking opportunities to maximize value while balancing risks. We are looking for a team player with leadership qualities of owner’s mindset, who is self-driven, and who is excited by new challenges.
Scope:
• Office, Residential, Land, Supply Chain, R&D, Retail and others. • Owned, leased and 3P managed sites are within the scope of this role.
• 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 an established 3P global supplier though transactions may be delivered without the 3P support.
• Ensure that Unilever’s governance and policies are adhered to. Some of the key areas of focus include:
• Drive real estate transactions end-to-end from portfolio review to transactions delivery.
• To drive Global real estate strategy and implement agreed plans that ensure the real estate portfolio supports our current business agenda, aligning with global and local policies and guidelines including but not limited to hybrid working, Future of the Office, Global Logistics strategy, M&As.
• Deliver transaction management service to business through leading and managing 3rd party RE Service Providers for all property types (office, warehouse, manufacturing, R&D, retail, as relevant) within the geographies, or self-perform, as relevant.
• Maintain and keep current our critical property data in our platform through working with outsourced RE and other providers (e.g., market values, terms of leases, number of people, square meters, costs to run, etc.).
• Develop KPIs that enable benchmarking with other companies, across Unilever and within local markets to identify opportunities for value creation, taking opportunities for quick win returns where available.
• Work in partnership with broader Workplace team to deliver full suite of workplace services (PM, Space Planning, FM, etc).
• Lead outsourced 3rd party provider to provide and support Strategic Portfolio Planning services for applicable geographies/portfolio and work closely with global Workplace Design & Experience team to ensure strategies are aligned locally and globally.
• Act as a change agent with key stakeholders to drive real estate principles and policies.
Responsibilities include:
• 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 and space planning requirements to implement the best occupancy strategies and commercial options for the business (including sale/lease backs, adjustments of rent to market, etc.).
• Provide plans that optimize space for the new hybrid ways of working to drive employee experience.
• Provide timely and accurate market data updates and forecasts of occupancies, rental rates, and operating expenses.
• Prepare integrated portfolio strategies that look holistically at business unit plans to identify and leverage opportunities between like requirements and functions.
• Drive the Real Estate strategy aligned with the global guidelines and governance in place and drive wider support for the real estate portfolio.
• Complete portfolio occupancy planning studies for existing properties and provide business location strategy and guidance for new locations.
• 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.
• As required, step-in to manage other aspects of the real estate portfolio
All about you:
• Relevant Degree or equivalent in real estate transactions career for South Asia (global/regional experience would be considered an added advantage).
• Relevant experience in delivering design/space planning, workplace strategy or operational services.
• Excellent analytical and communication skills (oral and written), advanced Excel skills, presentation packages (PowerPoint), interrogating databases (systems and web-based systems).
• Interest in how employee experience is affected by design / space planning, architecture, and desire to contribute to the future of workplaces.
• The ability to work a-synchronically with diverse groups. • Be able to have a high-level view and also roll-up the sleeves to do the transactions themselves.
• Analytical mindset with experience in conducting both quantitative and qualitative research.
• 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.
Skills & Experience :
• 12+ years of experience.
• Experience in the engagement of key, senior level stakeholders, along with proven ability to influence and manage relationships with those stakeholders.
• 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.
• 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.
• Detail oriented and be able to look at the big picture and understand the business plans and trends.
• Fluent spoken and written English. Hindi, Arabic, Other languages would be an advantage.
Critical skillset for this role:
• Real Estate (RE) industry knowledge including the following:
o Best practices o Contracting methods o Service Level Agreement methodologies o Strengths and weaknesses of third-party delivery models
o Key global, and regional service providers, and strengths and weaknesses of those providers
• Previous experience managing commercial real estate transactions, working with, and managing large commercial real estate service providers.
• Previous experience managing a regional lease administration program.
• Previous experience leading a strategic real estate portfolio planning program, and successful experience tying corporate real estate objectives to business objectives.
• Previous experience with Office portfolio, Logistics and Industrial projects, including supporting on the strategy stage of the projects.
• Ability 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 (KPI’s) and managing them across geographic regions.
• Experience of working regionally, bringing understanding and insight into the needs of other regions to the development of these service operations.
• Extensive experience in analyzing the “current situation” to develop strategies to drive efficiencies.
• Deep thinker keeping on top of trends, new ways of working and industry research.
• Energetic, action and people oriented. Team player who is working for the success of the business and the wider team is a critical element of this team’s culture.
• Strong Analytical and Organizational capabilities
• Effective communication and presenting skills
• Able to lead projects and manage project through prioritization and time management.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & process improvement.