Global real estate advisor, CBRE, has appointed Anna Esteban as MD of Advisory and Transaction Services (A&T) for Europe, a division that has more than 2,500 employees working with 30,000 clients including hundreds of occupiers and all the major real estate owners.
Esteban, a Spanish real estate professional who is based at CBRE’s Continental Europe HQ in Amsterdam, has been working for the company for more than 20 years having joined as a graduate.
She replaces Guy Holden, who will become chair of the A&T business across Europe by the end of the year and will maintain his responsibilities for the UK business into early 2025.
In her new role, Esteban will be responsible for growing CBRE’s A&T Services business across Europe. As well as property owners, she is in charge of a division that advises occupiers across seven industry sectors.
She will focus on enhancing the use of data and technology, driving profitability, providing ‘embedded’ sector expertise and driving synergies between the firms’ occupier and brokerage businesses. That, she hopes, will ensure clients consistently have access to a ‘holistic, end-to-end service’.
Esteban has already held several senior leadership roles during her two decades at CBRE across Europe. Though currently based in Amsterdam, the real estate professional has worked in Berlin, Barcelona and London.
Most recently, she served as head of business development for Continental Europe.
In a prepared statement, she said: ‘There is a huge opportunity to develop a fully integrated platform across Europe that harnesses the true power of our occupier and brokerage businesses, with sector expertise deeply embedded within that. This will allow us to elevate the conversations we are having with our clients and provide them with sustainable, intelligent solutions over the long term, while enabling us to attract and retain best-in-class talent. As we look to the next phase of growth, it is a truly exciting time to be taking over from Guy and I want to thank him for his ongoing guidance and support.’
First interview
But in her first interview since taking on the role, she spoke with PropertyEU about the challenges and opportunities ahead, building on the work already done by Holden.
‘The idea is to marry the advisory with the pure brokerage business on both the landlord and occupier side,’ she said. ‘The direction of travel is to strengthen that link.’
‘Real estate has evolved in terms of the role it plays for occupiers. Being able to leverage that on the landlord-side and serving property owners better is a strong capability.’
She said working as head of business development for Continental Europe helped her gain an oversight of the growth areas of the business. She oversaw ESG and gained involvement in digital enhancement.
‘For corporates, their real estate is not a “container” of their value chain anymore. It’s part of their value chain,’ she stated.
She said the main challenge was to maintain a ‘balance’ between cost optimization, workplace enhancement and decarbonisation. ‘Sometimes these are opposing forces, as occupiers need to optimize costs but at the same time transform the workplace while needing to invest in order to decarbonize.’
She has witnessed an unprecedented level of ‘disruption’ and ‘pace of change’ across occupier industries given technological developments, ESG, covid, and return to work practices.
Vacancy rates might have gone up in UK cities generally. However, at the same time, rents have gone up for the best real estate, she pointed out. ‘I’ve never seen a market in which vacancy goes up, but prime rents go up too. That is because you are seeing a widening gap between CBD / prime buildings and the rest. For the best properties, vacancy is going down which is why rents are going up. It is a very disrupted market.’
She added: ‘People talk about occupiers and the “flight to quality”. But it is really a flight to vibrancy. Occupiers want to bring their people to places that will attract them.’
Outsourcing
One other major trend she is seeing is outsourcing. According to her, Anglo American corporates are now into the second or third wave of outsourcing their property requirements. Now outsourcing or this ‘buying pattern’ is being seen across Continental Europe in large markets such as France, the Netherlands and Germany,
‘We are working with a lot of Continental European occupiers to help them put together their strategy. They are contending with a lot of changes that they didn’t have ten years ago – such as decarbonisation and return to work policies, so they need a lot more support.’
The key is to marry up CBRE’s local market expertise with the company’s capabilities across the whole A&T Services division in Europe and other relevant business lines so that a more harmonised approach is delivered.
Now the hard work begins.
