In any business you need to match the people you hire to the skills that you need. Every business venture is slightly different and the real estate world is often more different than just about any other in corporate America. With that in mind here are the roles you need if you are going to build a kick-ass CRE team:
- Head of CRE. Need someone who is politically savvy within the organization and willing to take on battles with the business that go against what has always been done. The Head of CRE should be willing to delegate the day-to-day to her team while holding them accountable for results. If you combine someone that understands what needs to happen and is willing to fight for it (while able to win) you can get amazing things done. Key trait: Willingness to fight for the right solutions.
- Controller. It is a law that real estate is ultimately all about the numbers. You need to have a strong financial controller who understands every penny that moves through the function. This person must hold fast on how the numbers work across the business. Too often this is the role missing in many corporate real estate teams. The best candidate for this position is someone that one day may want to be a CFO and has big ambitions. Key trait: Making sure all costs and investments make good business sense – even if they were made 3 years ago.
- Financial Analyst. Every team needs that go-to for number crunching. All decisions these days should be data driven and this person is the go-to for justifying them all. The Financial Analyst should not just be someone 3 to 5 years out of school that is good with Excel. The best financial analysts are those with enough ambition to eventually want to be running the entire CRE organization. Yes, they must be good with Excel but ultimately they understand what makes a good CRE decision. Key trait: Keeping the team honest on which decisions actually make sense; willing to challenge the rest of the team.
- Project Lead. At the end of the day real estate results are measured in completed projects. If you aren’t driving progress by implementing projects then nothing else matters. Anyone can just renew the existing space for 3 years and not worry about improving. The Project Lead should be someone who can delegate all projects out to the team and keep track of everything going on but at the same time they should be wanting to jump into the middle of the big projects and get their hands dirty. The best leads can tell you all the projects they are pushing the business on while also managing the day-to-day local office politics. This person is often the heir apparent to the Head of CRE. Key trait: Understands the bricks and mortar of real estate and can manage large number of projects with a team.
- Operations Lead. Ultimately real estate is about the ways that the business utilizes space. The Operations Lead is responsible for ensuring that the space is used correctly and where it isn’t fixing it or making sure no other spaces end up that way. This should be where most of the technology and metrics are created and maintained. In some ways this is almost an in-house consulting or QA role as you need someone who is constantly trying to push the boundaries of how things are done. They should be constantly innovating, tracking new technology, capturing new information and seeking out best practices wherever they may exist. Key trait: A desire to innovate and push everything forward – often in dramatic ways – and able to put together a winning pitch for making it happen.
What often happens is that the CRE team has one person filling multiple of these roles and doesn’t have the time to really put the time into what each would do if it was full time. Without each of these roles fully realized the result for most CRE teams is stagnation and less than desired results – usually just because there were not enough hours in the day to achieve everything they wanted.