Record-breaking Sydney Summit Ups Hurdle Rate

Sydney’s posh Starwood Westin, within a stone’s throw of the world-famous views of the city’s Harbour Bridge and Opera House, was the site of the CoreNet Global Australian Summit August 8-10, and it was ranked an unprecedented success which sets the mark higher for Summits to come.

Members of CoreNet Global from Australia, New Zealand and points East and West, an estimated 200 of them, attended the two-and-a-half-day meeting. The theme was "Alignment with the Business Agenda: Focusing & Amplifying Your Corporate Real Estate Contribution." An estimated 25 percent of attendees were first-timers, while international participation was more than 15 percent, with representation from Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

Record-breaking levels of sponsorship, record-high ratings of speakers and sessions and extensive news media coverage of the Summit resulted from a fact-packed agenda of general sessions, workshops and professional networking programs.

Two innovative case histories from the public sector were presented for the first time in a public forum: Lend-Lease of Sydney’s new headquarters complex at 30 The Bond, Hickson Road, Australia’s first five-star-rated green office building; and the innovative new workplace for National Australia Bank (NAB), a crossfunctional collaboration designed to optimize talent recruitment and retention.

CoreNet Global CEO Peggy Binzel presented the Region’s inaugural Corporate Real Estate Executive of the Year Award for 2004 to Steve Cox of Ernst & Young. Binzel also presented a keynote address highlighting relevant findings of Corporate Real Estate 2010: Enabling Work in a Networked World, the proprietary research initiative of CoreNet Global.

A professionally facilitated forum lightheartedly entitled "Landlords Are From Mars, Tenants Are From Venus" drew together representatives from the service-provider and end-user ranks for a comparison of perspectives on topics ranging from landlord service-level agreements, lease-term flexibility and associated premiums and rent review mechanisms to fit-out and make-good obligations and leasing incentives.

"Some of the best thinking in the world is occurring Down Under!" exclaimed Joel Ratekin, Manager of Workplace Strategy & Innovation for Capital One and one of the keynoters at the Summit.

Other conference highlights included:

• extremely well-attended pre- and post-Summit EDP seminars from the Masters of Corporate Real Estate (MCR) designation series;

• presentation of global trends and space models for distributed workforces, supported by data from the research initiative Sustainable Accommodation for the New Economy, funded by the European Commission;

• a look at Workplace 20-20, an innovation of the U.S. General Services Administration;

• innovative case studies from leading-edge companies doing pioneering work in workforce configurations for enhanced enterprise profitability and productivity;

• workshops examining the latest developments in the workplace, workplace design, change management and performance metrics;

• a focus on sustainability – of buildings, enterprises, communities and ecologies, and

• an overview of applications available with web-enabled CAFM (computer-aided facility management) systems, and much more!

For more information about the speakers, sponsors and programs click here.