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NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT MANAGERS 38 NAREIM As we worked through the evolution of the business, the opportunities to improve our investment performance, in addition to our efficiency and operational excellence, became more and more apparent and we are truly excited to see what future improvements can be made. Now armed with the empirical data I needed to convince even the most skeptical amongst my leadership team that we must adapt in order to flourish, we set out to find a leader and devoted change agent to spearhead an organizational transformation that would impact virtually every one of our 200+ employees in the Americas business. After an extensive search, LaSalle had the good fortune of hiring Kristy Heuberger from GE Capital as its Head of U.S. Asset Management in mid-2015. Kristy brought with her more than 20 years of experience in real estate across virtually all functional disciplines. The lofty goal that Kristy and I set for ourselves was to maximize utilization of our existing talent, improve productivity, and create enhanced career opportunities, while simultaneously driving improved investment performance. This would be a tectonic shift for the organization and we made it a priority to solicit feedback from a broad range of colleagues throughout the process in order to ensure buy-in. So what does the Asset Management function look like today? Today's structure operates as a Center of Excellence and aligns asset managers by property sector under four Sector Leaders. These individuals were all promoted from our existing ranks, and are viewed internally as leading experts in the unique aspects of managing office buildings, retail centers, rental apartment buildings, and logistics facilities. These property type experts team closely with their corresponding property type specialists in Acquisitions and Research & Strategy. Asset managers further focus on a particular geography for even greater expertise and efficiency. During our transition, we carefully reviewed our portfolio, met with each team member, outlined an array of new processes, and re-assigned asset responsibilities across the team. Our overarching goals in determining assignments and planning the roll-out were four-fold: 1) Align by property type and region 2) Match expertise in assignments 3) Limit the number of assignment changes, and 4) Provide growth opportunities for the team members Overall, this was a challenging process, but we feel that a good mix was achieved. While changing the manager assigned to a given asset can certainly be temporarily disrupting, we have also found that a new set of eyes on an asset can often bring new energy and perspective as well. We also had a clearly laid out asset transition process to provide smooth hand-offs. The centralized pool structure has allowed us to much more efficiently absorb new acquisitions as our AUM has grown and add new talent to the team when the expanding U.S. portfolio necessitated it. In fact, the AUM this group oversees has risen 30% over the past two years, with less than 10% increase in departmental headcount. The dedicated teams by property type are now thriving and motivated. We have worked very hard over the past 18 months in order to continually refine operating rhythms, use of technology, and the organization structure to become a thriving Center of Excellence, touting four key tenets: Expertise, Best Practice Sharing, Effective Processes/Tools and Scalability. When I asked Kristy about her thoughts about how far we had come, she was quick to caution that "We may have accomplished a lot so far, but we are still on the journey and we will continue to increase our expertise, and enhance our processes where it makes sense." The original objective, in instituting a transformation of the U.S. Asset Management structure, was never to disrupt what was working; it was to increase productivity and efficiency and position us for growth. It was an important undertaking for me, personally and professionally. As we worked through the evolution of the business, the opportunities to improve our investment performance, in addition to our efficiency and operational excellence, became more and more apparent and we are truly excited to see what future improvements can be made. Having completed this transition with minimal staff turnover is a testament to the strong culture of collaboration and increasing comfort with change at LaSalle as a whole. In fact, this transition has provided many Asset Management professionals with improved career paths and opportunities to expand their skillsets, something that is extremely rewarding to witness. Kristy is correct – change is a journey, as is leadership. It is, and continues to be, a fun ride.