In 2008, when Christian Ulbrich was new to commercial real estate giant JLL’s executive board, the global financial crisis loomed as a singular challenge. Now, almost nine years into his tenure as chief executive officer and president, he says he’s become accustomed to overlapping crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, disrupted supply chains, and economic and geopolitical uncertainty. This is also a time of transformational opportunity for commercial real estate, with AI and gen AI tools reshaping operations and commitment to sustainability propelling deep changes to how the industry thinks about building and retrofitting. McKinsey Partner Sebastian Reiter sat down with Ulbrich for a wide-ranging conversation that included discussion of strategic priorities, how to cultivate a resilient mindset in times of stress, and why JLL has to become “a technology company servicing the real estate sector.”
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Sebastian Reiter: Christian, it’s a pleasure to have the chance to speak today. To set the stage for our conversation, could you share a few of JLL’s most recent strategic priorities that will continue to shape the company’s focus and direction for the coming 12 months?
Christian Ulbrich: The three most important ambitions we had for this year were to accelerate our top- and bottom-line growth, to make tremendous progress on our AI initiatives, and to further develop our shared-service-center platform. Of course, we have had to adapt to the current geopolitical and economic situation. So not all of our ambitions will progress exactly as we planned.
In fact, due to uncertainty, in 2025 we are likely to have more market share than we originally planned to have this year. The trouble is, we don’t know how big the market will be or from where we will take that market share.
Sebastian Reiter: Let’s zero in on JLL’s AI initiatives. Could you share some details, including how you got started and where you are now?
Christian Ulbrich: The real estate industry historically has been relatively slow to really embrace technology and data, although it’s full of data. So, it has been our strategy now for many years to completely change the way we operate. Back in 2013, I described this ambition in a way that was meant to be a little provocative: that we have to become a technology company servicing the real estate sector. To achieve this, we have invested heavily in organizing our data, in identifying software tools that enable us to deliver better services, and in delivering higher quality client service at a lower price point.
Over the last couple of years, our investments increasingly went into using AI, which is quite logical when you consider the vast amount of data we can access. Over the more recent 18 to 24 months, we have started to see what we can do with generative AI.
Sebastian Reiter: Can you describe how these new tools benefit your colleagues and your clients?
Christian Ulbrich: By leveraging AI, we’re making it easier for our colleagues to achieve higher revenues. We’re empowering our capital markets brokers to complete more successful transactions. They use an AI-powered tool that analyzes proprietary and publicly available data to identify potential trading opportunities and financing needs for buildings in the US market. Our brokers can access this information on demand at any time, and they also receive automated AI alerts, reminding them to engage clients with timely and relevant insights. In the first quarter of 2025, this AI-powered tool had at least something to do with 30 percent of JLL’s capital market deals.
The corporate real estate managers who are outsourcing to our real estate management services business can use a proprietary, gen AI-powered tool we developed. Questions that used to take our business analytics team a couple of days to answer can now be resolved instantaneously with the help of this powerful AI tool.
It provides massive differentiation between our service offering and that of our competitors.
Sebastian Reiter: Let’s pivot to the next big theme: uncertainty. How does the current period compare with previous moments of crisis in your tenure at JLL?
Christian Ulbrich: I learned I would join JLL’s global executive board in the summer of 2008, while the sun was still shining, so to speak. Then, I had my first board meeting in October 2008, a couple weeks after investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. Basically, we lived in a pretty steady world where this one event—the global financial crisis—had occurred, and we could completely focus on it.
Then I became CEO in 2016 and practically since then, we are pretty much running from one crisis to another. It’s not that one is over and the next one is starting. They’re all overlapping. The biggest change is that in this environment, you have to pursue a clear strategic path, and you shouldn’t deviate from it just because of these multiple crises in the world. On the other hand, you have to accept that the world is offering you a different menu every day. More than ever before, you need to have the necessary resilience within your leadership team and within yourself as CEO.
Sebastian Reiter: When times are uncertain, how can leaders cultivate that resilient mindset within their teams and themselves?
Christian Ulbrich: It’s important to keep your team positive and motivated, but it has to be with a credible, authentic message.
Our company goes back to 1783, when it was founded in London. When times are particularly challenging, I will say to our people, “Think about all the events that have happened since 1783. There were good times, and there were bad times, but from each crisis, JLL came out stronger.”
Clients are looking for certainty in uncertain times, and JLL can provide it. Knowing that we can do it—and that we have since 1783—allows us to get out of each crisis stronger. To lead the company through these crises, it’s important that I anchor onto this authentic message so that everyone on the team can relate to the path forward.
Sebastian Reiter: Let’s shift gears to talk about JLL being a leader in sustainability. What were some of JLL’s early moves that helped the company make significant strides?
Christian Ulbrich: As far as I know, we led our industry in adopting the goals of the Paris Agreement. In 2020, we announced approval of our targets by the Science Based Targets initiative [SBTi], and in 2021, JLL became the first real estate services company to be recognized for aligning its net-zero commitment with climate science when our target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040 was certified to SBTi’s net-zero standard.1
Since then, we have made tremendous progress in reducing our carbon footprint back to the base year of 2018. Our direct Scope 1 and 2 emissions have been reduced by nearly 50 percent, even as our workforce has grown by more than 20,000 employees. Now, obviously, our own carbon footprint is relatively small. The biggest impact we have in sustainability is by reducing our clients’ carbon footprints.
Sebastian Reiter: What are other ways JLL is pursuing sustainability today?
Christian Ulbrich: Retrofits are key to reducing the carbon footprint of buildings. It’s always going to be more advantageous to find a way to reuse an existing building than to build a new one. Brand new buildings of course will be very advantageous once they are built, but construction adds so much carbon. Our retrofits are good for sustainability but also for the overall health of our clients’ portfolios.
Sebastian Reiter: And what about the future? How do you think the built environment will evolve over the next 50 years?
Christian Ulbrich: Because of climate change, the world is having more extreme weather situations, and buildings have to adapt to them. Locations will need to be carefully considered, particularly for critical facilities like data centers, advanced manufacturing, and logistics hubs. Building methods and habits can be improved.
Construction itself can change. Architects may not like what I’m about to say, but in fact, many aspects of buildings are fundamentally identical. It’s sometimes just the surfaces, exterior and interior, that differentiate them. Much of what goes onto and into a building can be prefabricated and modular, and it could all be delivered at much lower cost, faster, and more sustainably.
Another thing that can change is the tremendous waste that occurs in buildings. For example, companies should consider a paradigm shift in office design and reusing materials. Instead of discarding existing interiors when moving to new spaces, real estate companies could provide desirable, adaptable interiors, allowing occupiers to select buildings that best suit their needs. This would be better for sustainability goals, be less wasteful, and maximize employee satisfaction.
Sebastian Reiter: If a company positions itself as sustainable, it makes sense that it should explore occupying a retrofitted space. What are other ways that strategic property decisions can complement strategy and enhance business performance?
Christian Ulbrich: This is obviously very close to my heart, because I think there is still tremendous room for companies to benefit from their real estate footprints.
When a company thinks about delivering its brand message, it’s very important that the message and the real estate are in sync. This is crucial not just for the company’s own employees but also for its clients.
I always use the example of a company that says it’s on a path to being carbon neutral but is based in a dated office building where tons of smoke comes out of their chimney. Or when a company says they are totally transparent, but they are hiding in a building that looks like Fort Knox. These are examples of companies whose real estate is not in sync with their messages. But there are also companies where the real estate, the products, and the overall brand are very much in sync.
Companies need to think about what they are trying to achieve with the space they’re using. And they also need to consider whether they are really motivating colleagues to come to work and give their very best during working hours. How inspiring is the building environment? How inspiring is the area where the building is located? Companies have to think about whether the location is where they can tap into the necessary talent.
When we were starting to think about building a strong technology backbone at JLL, we asked ourselves, “Where do we place that?” And we decided that we would go into the heart of technology, which was in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. We created our tech offices in San Francisco and in Menlo Park, CA, because that’s where we were able to attract the right talent. We placed our shared-service centers in locations where we can compete for the best talent. For example, we have one in Gurugram, India, and another in Warsaw, Poland.
In short, you have to be clear about what you’re trying to achieve and then follow with your real estate strategy accordingly.
Sebastian Reiter: Looking forward, what real estate decisions that companies make now do you expect to have the most impact in the medium term, say five or six years from now?
Christian Ulbrich: Once the COVID-19 pandemic happened, people all over the world, including many of our clients, were questioning the role of the office. We at JLL stood pretty steadfast and said, “What was right in the past will be right in the future. We all need a place to work, and the main place to work will continue to be the office.”
That assertion has nothing to do with whether a company offers flexibility to its employees. But you have to have a place where you get together, where you experience the culture of your company, you experience the brand, and you engage with your colleagues to innovate and to pursue better outcomes.
You see today how many companies are getting back into office space—and some are even finding themselves too low on office space. That’s because the need for a workplace is one of those things that was true in the past, true now, and will continue to be true in the future.
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