Ben Munn, Director, Global Corporate Services, CB Richard Ellis

Robyn Kaiser, Director, Global Business Strategy, American Express
Susan Mitchell-Ketzes, Vice President, HOK

American Express has 65,000 employees and occupies over 12 million square feet of real estate - and they're growing. To meet the corporation's goal of reducing real estate costs, they have implemented an enterprise-wide programme called BlueWork. This programme incorporates alternative workplace strategies, which allow for constant expansion without taking on incremental space - providing significant savings to the bottom line.

But BlueWork is about more than just the physical office space. It is a comprehensive solution that integrates information technology to enhance work output, HR policies to encourage new ways of working, plus the latest innovations in corporate office environments. Through the implementation of these innovations, American Express anticipates an annual cost avoidance of between $15 and $20 million USD. Over time, these strategies are poised to save American Express $100 million whilst supporting the continued expansion of their workforce.

Kim Burt, Director, Original Creative Co-op B.V.

Edward Mackaness, Director, Ernst & Young
Geraldine Bear, Head of FM & Procurement, MCM
Christopher Biggs, Associate Director- Facilities Administration, Schroders
Andrew Talbot, Managing Director, HLW International

In these days of rapidly changing markets and ongoing shifts in worker demographics, the workplace is more than just a building. It has become an integral part of an organisation's strategy to differentiate themselves to their customers and their employees, and to invigorate the workforce, improving collaboration, efficiency, and productivity.

Schroders and Ernst & Young have approached the challenge of getting the most out of their headquarters buildings in London. Schroders chose to keep their City of London address and rebuild their headquarters whilst still in occupation. Over a two-year period they have succeeded in reshaping their image from a conservative company to a dynamic, forward-thinking organisation - a shift that is reinforced by the fresh redesign of their headquarters building. Ernst & Young desired to give their employees a workplace that supports new ways of working, and embraces the multiple generations at work. Their efforts have resulted in increased interaction and productivity from their workforce. Both companies engaged in transparent, collaborative change management programmmes.

Ralf Heuser, Head of Corporate Solutions Germany, Jones Lang LaSalle

Thomas Glatte, Head of Corporate Real Estate, BASF
Tanja Severin, Head of International Purchase and Sales, Siemens Real Estate

As corporations strive for greater efficiency and productivity, the trend towards centralising the corporate real estate function has increased. Whilst the benefits of doing so are many - faster decision making, consistent work processes, and greater transparency - there are many challenges that must be overcome. Territorialism, devotion to "the way things have always been done", and mistrust can all create serious barriers to the consolidation of corporate real estate.

In this highly interactive session, the panelists will share their experiences with centralising their corporate real estate functions, and the ways they met, and overcame, the challenges many companies are facing today.

Andy Shapiro, Managing Director, Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Company

Renè Buck, Principle, Buck Consultants
Dennis Meseroll, Managing Director, Tractus Asia
Dennis Donovan, Principle, Wadley Donovan Gutshaw
Dr. Ralph Neukirchen, Leader EMEA Shared Services Project, SAP
Kevin Dollhopf, Vice President, Worldwide Real Estate, Hanesbrands Inc.
Tom Clardy, President, Clardy Management Consultants (formerly SVP of QVC)

In this timely session, expert location advisors and corporate real estate professionals will describe the underlying forces that necessitate an allshore perspective, including how representative countries - by region - fit into the global location picture.

Meg Forbes, Corporate Real Estate & Facilities, Mastercard Europe

Petronella Gerards, Head, business Development, NUON Energie und Service GmbH
Brendan Bilton, CEO, Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd

The site of the Oberbruch Industrial Park has been in continuous operation for 110 years, with roots in the German chemical fibers industry. As global competition in manufacturing has increased, this site was in danger of being abandoned.

NUON Energy, a Dutch energy company, is working in cooperation with regional and national government, companies and stakeholders to find innovative uses for the site. As with many manufacturing and industrial facilities, the site possesses strong infrastructure and access to a skilled talent pool - qualities that make sites like these unique and appealing to multiple users. NUON has created a business development unit to entice a wide range of companies to the site. Today it is home to companies from Japan, Australia, Poland, the Netherlands, France, India and Germany.

Renè Buck, Principle, Buck Consultants

Johannes Brinkkötter, Managing Director, BASF

Nearly all companies struggle to get and keep the right workforce, the 'War for Talent' is daily reality. This session focuses on how CRE executives can support the company’s strategy by finding the right locations in Europe for new operations.

René Buck presents a practical checklist of which labour costs and labour quality factors have to be included in site searches. In his presentation René will also deal with ways how to assess differences between European countries regarding productivity levels, attitude of unions, multilingual skills, etc.

BASF, one of the largest chemical companies in the world, decided 3 years ago to create one pan-European Shared services center for finances/accounts and human resources service. This new 500 person center provides services which till that time were provided on a local basis by more than 100 BASF subsidiaries across Europe. After careful consideration of a number of locations in Europe, BASF chose Berlin. How did BASF assess the labour markets in the various countries and regions, how was information verified and also, does it work right now?

Robin Harris, Sales & Marketing Director, Como

Peter Doran, Head of Real Estate, Global, Nokia Siemens Network
Stephen Norris, Partner, Client Services, Cushman & Wakefield

Corporate real estate is an increasingly international function and companies that can create and leverage truly global partnerships will have a strategic advantage for the future.

Nokia Siemens Network chose to embed a secondee from Cushman & Wakefield to deliver their global real estate strategy. This innovative partnership faced significant challenges, including balancing the business objectives from the corporate side and gaining acceptance of an "outsider" from the real estate organisation. Success came from a working relationship based on trust and shared vision, and resulted in a global property strategy that identified over €100 million in savings.

Michael Creamer, Head of Client Solutions EMEA & APAC, Cushman & Wakefield

Peter Copley, Property Director, emap
Kerstin Sailer, Head of Research, Spacelab
Germain Verbeemen, Partner, WICE Consulting
Chris Huygebaert, Corporate RE Advisor, Alcatel-Lucent

Human productivity has many drivers, and creating a work environment that enhances the performance of the organisation is a growing challenge. How does a corporation increase collaboration and decrease churn, whilst reducing costs? Emap and Alcatel-Lucent share how the use of social network analyses and extensive activity measurement produced effective workplaces that contribute to the corporate bottom line.

Ron Adam, Director Learning Europe, CoreNet Global

Dr. Marie Puybaraud, Director Global WorkPlace Innovation, Johnson Controls

For the first time in history, four generations are working together simultaneously. The newcomers to the workforce, Generation Y, are considered to be transformational in their desires and expectations from the workplace. To understand what impact this generation will have on the workplace, Johnson Controls, supported by several corporations and academic institutions, has launched a global research project called OXYGENZ, whose goal is to provide new insight into how businesses can use real estate and facilities as strategic assets to attract and retain young talent. The results will reveal Generation Y's preferences for design, technology, location, sustainability and the importance of choice in the future workplace.

Shelley Frost, Regional Director EMEA Corporate Solutions, Jones Lang LaSalle

Earle Arney, Director, Woods Bagot
Peter Hall, CEO, Aspen Group
Paul Edwards, Head of Sustainability, Hammerson

Environmental performance is increasingly important for employee satisfaction and retention, and greater long term productivity. With this substantial shift in the awareness, understanding and adoption of sustainable built environment solutions, what is next? Woods Bagot will present the results of research gathered in Australia, Europe, Asia and the Middle East that indicates what the future may hold for environmentally sustainable design and how it will impact corporate real estate.

City Central, Tower 1, the first building to obtain a 5 Green Star rating in South Australia, (also awarded a 2007 Leaf Award (UK)), will demonstrate the correlation between 'environmentally sustainable" and "high performance" workplaces.

Anthony Smith, Senior Director EMEA, Sun Microsystems

Petr Vlasaty, Datacenter Architect, EMEA Technical Infrastructure Lead, Sun Microsystems

Eco: It's all about Ecology and Economics. In the world of datacenters, rising demand and finite capacity are colliding. Couple that with increasing energy costs, space requirements, and heat output, and the time has come for a radical re-design. Sun Microsystems, with its multi-billion dollar IT/R&D technical infrastructure portfolio, needed a solution that was flexible and scalable. The solution is a datacenter that reduces space requirements by 66 percent and operating expenses by 30 percent.

TBD

The Community's purpose and vision is to gather and share world-class information, experiences, and solutions specific to the Workplace. Through an engaging and interactive “world café” approach, this session will focus on building a global perspective on emerging workplace issues, specifically those unique to Europe.

The Community will work to develop topics of research, explore best practices, and establish avenues for global knowledge-sharing. Join us for the first meeting of the Workplace Community in Europe to learn more about the structure and goals of the Community, and how you can get involved.

Gayle Sellman, Manager Program Development, CoreNet Global

William Fawcett, Chadwick Fellow in Architecture, The Martin Centre, University of Cambridge Department of Architecture
Andrew Chadwick, Director, Chadwick International

Modern workstyles in the knowledge economy give individual employees a high level of choice about where and when they work. Individual choice creates uncertainty for managers and designers of workplaces, who face challenges where past experience is of little help. The research method developed by Chadwick International and The Martin Centre at the University of Cambridge focuses on the individual employee and his/her decision between the alternative work spaces available. This information is calibrated with real-world survey data and used to create simulation models to evaluate potential workplace change strategies, providing empirical guidance for the future of workplace design.

Amanda Brooks, Director Program Ideation & Development, CoreNet Global

Edward Mackaness, Director, Ernst & Young LLP

Many corporate real estate projects and change management programmes fail to fully deliver benefits. The projects suffer from poor alignment between strategic drivers and project delivery, inefficient internal hand-offs, and a lack of buy-in and commitment by different internal teams. To differentiate programme management from project management means that there is firm senior level buy-in and support, ownership of the process by those responsible for it and an overarching commitment to the outcomes of the project. The challenges include a lack of necessary skills and the need for more training but benefits can deliver enterprise-wide changes in business processes.

Gayle Sellman, Manager Program Development, CoreNet Global

Prof. Dr. Werner Nann, Professor of Real Estate,
Berlin University of Applied Sciences

The difficulties in deriving market values for industrial properties is compounded when dealing with properties in several different countries. This session offers a practical approach to the valuation of industrial property in international portfolios. Prof. Dr. Nann will focus on two topics: first, what does the term "valuation" really mean? Secondly, he will share methods to properly design a valuation process that can be used by multinational corporations to appropriately value their international industrial property portfolios.

Amanda Brooks, Director Program Ideation & Development, CoreNet Global

Ziona Strelitz, Founder & Director, ZZA Responsive User Environments

The way we live has been revolutionised by demographic, technological and cultural change, with significant shifts in how we divide our time between work, family, and leisure. In spite of these shifts, our workplaces have not changed to accommodate the new paradigm. Creative solutions are needed that promote work-life balance – solutions that increase productivity for both employees and the companies they work for. This presentation will critique the status quo, and describe forward-looking real estate approaches that can be applied in both city centre and suburban locations.

Gayle Sellman, Manager Program Development, CoreNet Global