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Strategic Consulting

Clarity that moves you forward
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Real estate questions are rarely just about real estate. They are business decisions that shape cost and investment strategy, talent, operations, culture, and growth. 

Cushman & Wakefield’s Strategic Consulting helps you get to the real business problem behind the ask, the part others miss. We bring clear, unbiased insight that turns uncertainty into confident decisions and stay beside you through execution, fully accountable for making the plan work in the real world.  

We pride ourselves on helping clients navigate the increasing complexity of the built environment by answering the questions that matter most and translating business strategy into built strategy.

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What Sets Us Apart

Your Portfolio Is Built Around Your Business

We help you determine where to operate, how much space to hold, what network to build and how to adapt as talent, costs and business needs evolve, understanding tradeoffs and making informed decisions backed by data, financial analysis, market insight, and commercial judgement.

Workplaces That Work For Your People

We help you define and deliver workplace strategies that align employee experience with business goals, bringing together data, workforce insights, change enablement and possible impacts of AI on work to help shape future ways of working.

Capital Prioritization, Done Properly

We help you navigate opportunities, understand risk, tradeoffs, and prioritize investments across assets, portfolios and developments, using market insight, financial analysis, and scenario modeling to maximize long-term value and portfolio performance.

Sustainability That Goes Beyond Compliance

We help you develop practical sustainability strategies that balance business objectives, stakeholder expectations and regulatory requirements, supporting people, communities, the environment, and long-term performance.

Preparing for the AI Inflection Point

We bring forward-looking perspective on macroeconomic forces, market dynamics, and industry trends to help you evaluate how AI may transform the way work gets done. Through workshops, scenario planning, and tailored use cases, we translate this to implications for your workforce, workplace, and portfolio, providing clarity around future talent needs, space requirements, investment priorities, and the asset and capital strategies required to realize them.

Aligning Stakeholders Around a Clear Path Forward

We help ground leaders in the underlying problem statement and business objectives, and evaluate portfolio, workplace, asset, development, and/or commercial options to address them. Through scenario development, data-driven insights, and stakeholder engagement, we guide cross-functional decision-making towards the real estate solutions that maximize business value.

Investment Decisions You Can Stand Behind

We help you evaluate financial impacts and understand the implications of different investment choices, bringing together commercial insight, financial modeling and business case development to support confident decision making.

Our Services

Portfolio & Location Strategy 

The right locations, with the right talent 

Choosing the right locations for your business unlocks growth, reduces costs, and improves access to talent. We help you align real estate decisions with business strategy, so every location works harder for your organization. 

By combining workforce insights, market intelligence, and financial analysis, we bring clarity to complex decisions across your footprint. 

Key questions asked: 

  • How much space do we need today, and how much will we need in the future?  
  • Which locations best support our talent, business, and growth objectives? 
  • What is the right portfolio footprint to balance performance, resilience, and efficiency, and where should we grow, consolidate, or exit to achieve this? 
  • What is the right total occupancy cost, and how do we compare to the market?  
  • How are shifting workforce, technology, and market trends impacting our strategy? 

Workplace & Transformation Strategy 

The right workplaces, used the right way  

The workplace is more than a place, it is a strategic tool for shaping employee experience, enabling new ways of working, and supporting business success. We help organizations align workplace, culture, and operations to create environments where people thrive, performance improves, and transformation endures. 

Key questions asked: 

  • How much space do we really need if the way we work keeps changing?  
  • How can we create a workplace experience that helps our people do their best work and supports attraction and retention of talent? 
  • What future ways of working will best support our business, culture, and workforce? 
  • How can we navigate change while strengthening engagement, productivity, and culture? 
  • How do we align our workplace investments with changing employee expectations and business priorities? 

Asset & Development Strategy 

The right projects, sized for long-term value 

Real estate decisions don’t stop at acquisition, they require continuous evaluation, planning, and optimization. We help clients make informed investment and development decisions that balance risk, cost, and long-term value, and ultimately deliver optimal commercial outcomes. 

Clients come to us to seek advice on how to structure, deliver and fund large-scale and complex development and urban regeneration projects. Whether repositioning assets or developing new precincts, we provide the strategic insight and skills in Asset and Development delivery needed to move forward with confidence and to meet our clients’ objectives. 

Key questions asked: 

  • What is the appropriate mix of land uses that align with the demand/supply equation and maximize viability and returns? 
  • How do I add value in a risk-adjusted way to my asset or portfolio? 
  • How do I optimize the feasibility of my development project or precinct and manage and mitigate risk? 
  • How can I structure the delivery of my project and leverage commercial partnering and funding opportunities?  
  • What are the preferred planning pathways and development strategies to bring my project to life? 

Sustainability Strategy

The right strategies, built for long-term resilience and value

Sustainability is no longer a standalone initiative. It is a key driver of real estate value, operational efficiency, risk management, and investment performance. As regulatory requirements, investor expectations, and market demands continue to evolve, organizations need practical sustainability strategies that deliver measurable business outcomes. We help clients develop and implement sustainability and social impact strategies that strengthen asset performance, reduce operating costs, manage climate-related risks, unlock value creation opportunities, support net zero and decarbonization goals, enhance investor and stakeholder confidence, and improve portfolio resilience. From materiality assessments and target setting to sustainability roadmaps, governance frameworks, social value strategies, climate risk integration, and reporting and disclosure, we help organizations turn sustainability ambitions into tangible commercial results.

Key questions asked: 

  • How can sustainability create value, reduce costs, and improve performance across our assets and portfolio?
  • What sustainability priorities are most material to our business, stakeholders, and investment objectives?
  • How do we develop a practical sustainability strategy and roadmap that delivers measurable outcomes?
  • How can we identify, manage, and respond to climate-related risks and opportunities?
  • What targets, governance structures, and action plans are needed to achieve our sustainability goals?
  • How do we measure, communicate, and demonstrate sustainability performance to investors, customers, regulators, and other stakeholders?

Commercial and Financial Strategy 

The right capital, structured for better decisions 

Real estate decisions are only as strong as the commercial and financial strategy behind them. We help clients evaluate opportunities, structure deals, and build the financial case for action, bringing clarity to complex decisions where risk, return, and timing all matter.  

Whether assessing investment opportunities, developing funding and capital strategies, establishing delivery and partnership models, evaluating commercial proposals, or demonstrating economic and social value, we provide the insight and rigor required to support confident decision-making to public, private and not-for-profit clients. 

Key questions asked: 

  • How do we make this project commercially-viable and investment-ready?  
  • How do we structure partnerships, incentives, and risk allocation for success?  
  • How do we attract the right investors, developers, and operators?  
  • How do we mobilize capital while delivering sustainable economic and community outcomes? 

Our Expertise

One Platform. Every Industry. Every Property Type. No Default Lens.

Our work is industry- and property type-agnostic by design. We don’t start from a fixed point of view – we start from the business problem, then draw on specialist expertise embedded across the global Cushman & Wakefield platform to solve it, wherever that expertise sits.

Our client base is diverse and includes public, private, and not-for-profit entities. We adapt our approach to each client’s unique context, delivering the depth of a specialist and the objectivity of a generalist within the same engagement: portfolio planning, location strategy, workplace design, asset and development strategy, commercial and financial strategy, and sustainability strategy, all informed by real-time data and precedent from across every industry type and property type we touch rather than filtered through the assumptions of any one of them.

Our Smart Advisors

Smart Advice in a Complex World

Today’s built environment is shaped by rising costs, shifting policy, community expectations and the pressure to do more with less. In a world crowded with automated ideas and generic advice, clients aren’t looking for more noise. They want clarity, honest perspective and trusted partners to help guide confident decisions.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Smart Advisors do exactly that. Our global Strategic Consulting team of 500+ consultants is made up of futurists, urban planners, engineers, valuers, development managers, workplace strategists, data scientists, accountants, investment bankers, economists, architects, financial modelers, and so much more.

We start with why. We don’t accept the problem statement at face value.  We interrogate it. We refine it.  

The most complex challenges demand deeper intelligence - powered by data, AI, advanced analytics and shaped by human judgement. 

Our advisors apply expertise, context and experience to interpret advanced analytics, scenario modelling, creating evidence-based insight, that turns complexity into clarity, giving clients the certainty and confidence to make decisions that stand up under pressure.  

Global Leadership Team

Despina Katsikakis (image)
Despina Katsikakis

Global Chair of Strategic Consulting
London, United Kingdom


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Shilpa Anturkar
Shilpa Anturkar

Global Head Strategic Consulting Operations
United States


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Paul-Koenigsdorf-web-640.jpg
Paul Koenigsdorf

Executive Managing Director, Occupier Advisory Services
St. Louis, United States


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ROSS_HAMILTON_Headshot_2026
Ross Hamilton

Head of Strategic Consulting, APAC & EMEA
Melbourne, Australia


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Nicola Gillen
Nicola Gillen

Head of Strategic Consulting EMEA
London, United Kingdom


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Carol Wong

Managing Director – Head of Strategic Consulting, GOS APAC
Singapore, Singapore


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Better outcomes don’t come from common advice. They come from real insight, deep relationships and a partner who sees the full picture.

Insight Hubs

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AI Impact Hub

Artificial intelligence is moving into a stage where we are starting to see real, measurable impact instead of just speculation.
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Experience per Square Foot

Our Strategic Consulting Research & Innovation Team provides the latest trends in the dynamic commercial real estate industry.
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Featured Insights

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REdefining the Industrial Workplace: From Cost Center to Performance Driver

This report argues that workplace experience in factories, manufacturing plants and logistics facilities is now an operational imperative, directly linked to safety, productivity and retention.
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Sustainability How-to Guides

A Practical Sustainability Series
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Research • Sustainability / ESG

Sustainable Returns

A New Value Paradigm for Sustainable Urban Regeneration
4/22/2026
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​Unlocking Value From Transport Infrastructure​

Explore how train station adjacent redevelopment can unlock long‑term economic, social and environmental value through placemaking, market insight and strategic partnerships.
Dominic Brown • 4/9/2026
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Research • Workplace

Office Fit Out Cost Guides

These guides are an essential tool to assist in corporate real estate decision-making regarding fitting out, retrofitting and reinstating office space.
3/24/2026
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Reimagining Workplaces: Why Efforts Fall Short—and How to Get It Right

The workplace is at a crossroads. Despite investments in redesigns, return-to-office mandates and new technologies, employee engagement is declining, collaboration is challenging, and office use continues to lag. Leaders are asking: What will it take to make the workplace work again?
Linsey Smith • 10/27/2025
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Research

Reshaping the City Report 2025

Australia’s CBDs are evolving and so is the commercial office market. With more than 2 million square metres of prime office leases set to expire in Sydney and Melbourne between 2026 and 2028, competition is heating up.
6/23/2025
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Research • Workplace

What Occupiers Want: Global Survey Results 2025

In partnership with CoreNet Global, Cushman & Wakefield presents the 2025 edition of What Occupiers Want—our biennial global survey that captures key priorities and perspectives into the shifting dynamics of decision-making, investment, workplace trends and portfolio strategies of occupiers worldwide.
Despina Katsikakis • 6/17/2025

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Frequently Asked Questions

We help clients navigate complex decisions related to their real estate assets, particularly during periods of change, growth, or transformation. Taking a broader business perspective, we advise to on the optimal alignment of real estate decisions to organizational goals.

Strategic Consulting is most valuable at the start of a decision – when you need clarity on direction before taking action. We help define the real estate strategy that guides everything that follows.

We go beyond recommendations. Our team combines strategy with execution, helping you to not only determine the right path forward but also implement it.

We start with your goals, then apply data, market insight, and cross-functional expertise to build a strategy that reflects your unique needs, industry, and operating model.

Our work is focused on measurable results – improving portfolio performance, supporting talent strategy, enhancing employee experience, reducing business risk, optimizing financial outcomes, and enabling more confident decision-making.

Yes. Our team has over 500 consultants operating across regions and markets, delivering scalable strategies with local depth and execution.

Better outcomes don’t come from common advice. They come from real insight, deep relationships and a partner who sees the full picture.
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