Director, Global Real Estate

Grant Thornton•Chicago, IL

About The Position

Grant Thornton is seeking a Director, Global Real Estate to join the team. Approved office locations can be found below. The Director, Global Real Estate owns the firm's global real estate strategy and portfolio. This is a strategy-and-oversight role for global real estate activities across strategy, workplace design, transactions, and financial management of the global lease portfolio. The Director sets portfolio direction, occupancy strategy, and workplace design standards, and partners closely with Workplace Operations on place-based execution.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in real estate, business, architecture/engineering, or a related field (advanced degree a plus)
10+ years of global corporate real estate experience within a multinational organization, including portfolio strategy and transactions oversight
Experience leading a partner-led delivery model (brokerage, design, and construction vendors)
Strong financial acumen, including capital planning and project economics
Proven ability to provide strategic oversight of a global or multi-country portfolio
Excellent stakeholder-management and executive-communication skills
Ability to travel as business needs arise (international and domestic)

Responsibilities

Define and own the global real estate strategy, portfolio plan, and occupancy strategy aligned to firm growth and integration
Set workplace design standards and guardrails applied across the portfolio
Establish real estate governance, data, and analytics to support capital and occupancy decisions
Continuously evaluate and propose automation and AI adoption opportunities within real estate and design & construction processes, partnering with Global Transformation & Integration on centralized prioritization and delivery
Own the transactions strategy and oversee execution through the firm's appointed real estate transactions partner
Oversee the external design & construction partner relationships, ensuring best-in-class outcomes with fees appropriately charged to capital projects
Manage an outsource provider- and partner-first delivery model, holding partners accountable to performance and service standards
Own the global design standards, recommending changes in office designs and layouts in accordance with business needs and regional/local adaptions where necessary
Ensure projects are delivered on scope, schedule, and budget, and to firm design standards
Establish metrics and targets for efficiency, cost, and customer satisfaction across the real estate portfolio
Build, monitor, and act on reports and dashboards that track performance and progress against targets, elevating the function's data, analytics, and business-intelligence maturity
Use data-driven insights to inform decisions, prioritize improvements, and demonstrate value to firm leadership
Partner with Workplace Operations on place-based execution (occupancy, moves, fit-outs) via the dotted-line relationship with Regional Managers
Collaborate with Finance on capital planning, accounting and financial reporting treatment, and project economics
Represent the function with strong executive presence, delivering clear, concise, and executive-ready communications and deliverables
Co-design the function's detailed target model with the Global Administrative Services Leader
Other duties as assigned