|
Happy April!
We are fresh off a wonderful trip exploring Paris with family and friends. Inspired by the miles of bike lanes, blooming gardens, and the pairing of mass timber structures with Haussmann buildings.
Thank you for reading and if you have any questions or comments, reach out!
Silos Kill Performance
In commercial real estate, we often say that time kills IRRs. That is true.
But what we do not talk about enough is how silos kill IRRs as well.
In a market where capital availability, regulation, and investor sentiment shift by the week, and lately by the day, organizational alignment is more important than ever. Real estate professionals are navigating through layers of uncertainty: interest rate volatility, supply chain changes, labor shortages, and evolving capital stack expectations. In this environment, speed, collaboration, and adaptability determine who preserves value and who leaves it on the table.
And yet, many teams still operate in silos.
Acquisitions. Asset management. Development. Operations. All crucial. But when these functions do not work together, or worse, work at cross-purposes, performance suffers quietly and significantly.
Silos materially erode value. Here is how:
1. Transitions cost time and time is money
When a project moves from one team to another, valuable information is lost in translation. Institutional knowledge walks out with the person who was on the deal first. Every handoff creates delays. In today’s environment, even short delays can impact refinancing terms, tenant decisions, or exit opportunities.
2. Lessons stay stuck, mistakes repeat
In a rapidly shifting market, there is no room to repeat the preventable mistakes. But that is exactly the risk in siloed organizations. One team might learn something valuable about cost inflation or permitting timelines, but without formal knowledge sharing, others do not benefit. The organization remains stuck in a cycle of re-learning, while competitors move forward.
3. Collaboration creates value, but silos drain it
Creativity and value creation thrive at the intersections between disciplines, teams, and perspectives. When teams collaborate, they find smarter ways to manage risk, reposition assets, uncover value, or optimize cash flow. Silos block access to those insights, cutting off opportunities before they emerge.
The Way Forward: Tools, Transparency, and Team Alignment
In this cycle, operational excellence is not a slogan, it is a requirement. And it demands more than good intentions. It requires intentionally building structures, systems, and shared understanding.
1. Use tools to enable seamless collaboration
In a dynamic market, decisions cannot wait for email threads or quarterly meetings. Use of centralized data platforms, shared dashboards, and clear communication tools that update in real time provide everyone, from the analyst to the asset manager with the same facts at the same time. This allows for faster and more informed decisions. Visibility fuels velocity.
2. Treat lessons learned as a formal practice
Do not assume that institutional memory will carry forward. Institutionalize it. Build processes that capture and circulate insights across the full lifecycle of an investment. Lessons should be documented, reviewed, and discussed across functions. Institutional learning should not depend on who is in the room, it should be accessible to the entire team. In a volatile market, yesterday’s insights can unlock tomorrow’s solutions.
3. Align early on what success looks like
Align early and often. Every team member, from acquisitions to ops, should know the return expectations, key risk factors, and what success looks like for a given investment. Inconsistent definitions lead to inconsistent decisions. Alignment creates accountability and better execution. When every team member is rowing in the same direction, execution improves—and performance improves.
In times of market clarity, operational gaps can be masked. In times of uncertainty, those gaps widen, and the costs are real.
If time kills IRRs, silos bury them.
Let us break down the barriers and move forward—together, aligned, and ready.
|
|
|
What We Are sharing
The reality of change management leadership: When things are changing, growing, or evolving, we will not always have the answers—and that is okay.
As a leader, our job is not to have all the answers; our job is to find them. That means staying curious, asking the right questions, and guiding our team through uncertainty with confidence.
Consider using these phrases when navigating change with your team (from a great HBR article):
💡 "I do not know yet, but we can find out together."
💡 "What do we need to learn to move forward?"
💡 "Here is what we do know— we can build from there."
Leadership is not about certainty.
Leadership is about resilience, adaptability, and creating space for discovery.
You may have seen the headlines. Another company resets its resiliency and decarbonization goals. What is the story behind the story?
Digging in, we see that:
📐 Credibility matters. Companies are revising goals to align with what they can actually deliver. If they continue to miss targets, they risk eroding trust with stakeholders.
📐 Learning is occurring. As organizations move from ambition to implementation, they are gaining insight. That insight is shaping new, more informed commitments. This is a positive development.
📐 Alignment of goals is key. Business success is achieved when resiliency and decarbonization goals align with broader business goals. As business growth projections shift, especially in response to global supply chain instability, the goals must shift accordingly.
Two sides of one coin:
🪙 ING became the first global bank with SBTi-approved targets for reducing financed emissions.
🪙 At the same time, other banks are revising their climate goals.
This reflects both increased accountability and the need to match risk mitigation needs with economic and operational realities.
The grand reset of resiliency goals is not failure.
It is adaptation.
Messy. Real. Necessary.
And it is in this messy middle where long-term value is created.
Heads up: Pay close attention to changes in global supply chains. That is where resiliency goals and business strategy intersect.
In this exclusive interview, Alex Wiffen, Director of Cherry Pick People, sits down with Mandi Wedin, Founder & CEO of Feroce Real Estate Advisors, to explore how AI is reshaping real estate, construction, and PropTech.
With AI-driven solutions transforming investment strategies, sustainability initiatives, and operational efficiencies, the question is: Are we fully prepared to harness AI’s potential?
📌 Key Topics Covered:
- How AI is transforming commercial real estate investment and operations
- The intersection of AI, sustainability (ESG+R), and PropTech
- Using AI to drive efficiency and resilience in real estate portfolios
- Challenges in AI adoption within the built environment
- The role of structured data in maximizing AI’s impact
- Future trends: How AI will shape real estate decision-making
🎙️ Featuring:
- Mandi Wedin – Founder & CEO, Feroce Real Estate Advisors
- Hosted by Alex Wiffen – Director, Cherry Pick People
🔥 Key Quotes from the Interview:
- "AI is no longer a futuristic concept; it’s actively reshaping how we invest in, manage, and optimize real estate."
- "The biggest challenge isn't AI itself, but how we integrate it into existing systems and workflows."
- "Sustainability and AI go hand in hand—data-driven insights help us reduce carbon footprints and improve operational efficiency."
- "AI is unlocking new ways to enhance resilience in real estate portfolios, making assets more adaptive to change."
- "For AI to truly add value, we need structured, high-quality data—without it, AI is just noise."
Check out the full catalogue of interviews to hear how people see AI reshaping the built environment.
Leadership is not about waiting for clarity, it is about making decisions when the map is incomplete.
Right now, we are living through a frontier moment in CRE. Capital markets are uncertain. Sustainability regulations are evolving. Talent dynamics are shifting. Artificial intelligence is changing how we operate—rapidly.
Growing up in Alaska showed me how to lead with a frontier mentality. What that looks like:
- Expect disruption—and build for it.
- Embrace the unknown with purpose and clarity.
- Design resiliency into how I think, plan, and lead.
When the future feels uncertain, I return to Mr. Rogers’ timeless advice: “Look for the helpers.” The strongest leaders are not only bold, they are connected. They find strength in community, elevate others, and lead in ways that make room for more people to thrive.
Leadership excellence begins with people who are agile, grounded, and willing to go first.
Still thinking about this conversation with Mandi Wedin, Feroce Real Estate Advisors on the latest episode of Breaking New Ground. Mandi is the best kind of guest—smart, generous, and deeply experienced. It was a messy morning in production and I was happy to have a pro who could carry the conversation. She broke down what it really means to lead through change in CRE, from decarbonization to deploying tech at the property level, and shared such honest, thoughtful insights about being a translator between innovation and execution.
Mandi clearly articulates the real-life complexity of driving innovation in CRE. She didn’t sugarcoat anything—she talked about the layers of decision-makers, the communication breakdowns, the risk aversion, and the challenges of operationalizing change across large portfolios. But more importantly, she offered practical, tested solutions and a human-centered approach to moving things forward. Her perspective on connecting the dots between building engineers, sustainability goals, and long-term asset value is a reminder that innovation isn’t just about ideas—it’s about people, process, and alignment.
Thank you, Mandi for sharing your insights and time with us. Next time we will dig into one of the many topics you are a leader in when my co-host John Pugh returns.
Check out the full catalogue of Breaking New Ground episodes to learn from their guests who are reshaping the CRE industry.
Grateful to CREW DC for bringing people together to shape the future of our region through inclusive development.
It was an honor to join Sarah Rosen Wartell, Matt Kelly, and Rebecca Rockey for a high-impact conversation on how we can apply inclusive economic development tools to build resilient, vibrant communities.
Key takeaways from our discussion:
- People + Places – Both are essential to lasting impact.
- A Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity – Cities have a rare chance to build a better, stronger future.
- Bridging the Gap – The business and real estate community have the opportunity to actively engage with elected officials to share priorities and shape policy.
Recent, valuable research out there on this topic:
- Cushman & Wakefield, Reimagining Cities: Disrupting the Urban Doom Loop, Rebecca Rockey, et al, Sept 2024
- Centre for Cities, Return to the office: How London compares to other global cities, and why this matters, Rob Johnson and Oscar Selby, Sept 2024
- Brookings, How to break the doom loop: Actionable insights from the Brookings Future of Downtowns learning exchange, Tracy Hadden Loh and Hanna Love, July 2024
- The Volcker Alliance, Doom Loop or Boom Loop – State and Local Budgeting in the COVID Era, Richard Voith, Susan Wachter, David Stanek, and Hyojin Lee, May 2024
|
|
|
What We Are Reading
✨ Tract, A Postmortem of a Startup, Jamie Rumbelow and Henry Dashwood, 3 Apr 2025 - a candid, valuable after action report from co-founders after they closed down their startup
✨ HeatMap, The Mystery of the Moss Landing Battery Fire, Jael Holzman, 28 Mar 2025 - a resilient grid includes battery storage systems, and we are learning in real time how to deploy them safely and effectively at scale.
✨ Verge, ChatGPT is turning everything into Studio Ghibli art - and it got weird fast, 27 Mar 2025 - AI is hoovering up content. This hoovering is morally and legally questionable and the output is also questionable.
✨ NYT, Drones Will Do Some Schlepping for Sherpas on Mount Everest, Bhadra Sharma and Mujib Mashal,18 Mar 2025 – triggers my frontier mentality.
✨ Paul Krugman, How Worried Should We Be About the Economy? A conversation with Neil Dutta, 15 Mar 2025 – valuable context for the continual stop and start policies impacting the economy; like much of the information we consume today, it has a half life.
✨ Cushman & Wakefield, Five Years Later CRE in a Post-Pandemic World, March 2025 - vibrant city centers with experiences are bringing back the young renters.
|
|
|
Where We Can Catch Up
✨ DC Climate Week, 28 Apr – 2 May
✨ Better Buildings, Better Plants Summit, 30 Apr – 2 May
✨ Nexus Labs Owner Meetup: Adoption of Tech Tools to Help Digitize and Optimize Maintenance, 7 May
✨ WashREIT Alum Network, 8 May
✨ Inspiration @ Intersection of Real Estate + Tech May Dinner
✨ Hesketh Island, Alaska, 1-4 Aug
✨ NexusCon 2025, Denver, 6-8 Oct
|
|
|
About Feroce Real Estate Advisors
Feroce Real Estate Advisors works with forward-thinking real estate companies to leverage change and build value at the intersection of real estate investment, sustainability, and technology. We guide clients through complex challenges, positioning their real estate and teams for success in a rapidly changing world.
Our work usually falls into one of these categories:
- Fractional executive roles serving as head of asset management or portfolio management for growing real estate investment management companies.
- Provide high value strategic advisory services with a focus on delivering investment performance measured by risk-adjusted returns and organizational priorities.
- Advisory board roles with proptech organizations focused on high ROI solutions in renewables, decarbonization, cleantech, and operational improvement.
Please reach out to connect:
Thank you for reading! If this newsletter was shared with you, please click here to join our community. Please share your feedback to help us make it better.
All the best,
Mandi
|
|
|