Savills chairman and CEO demonstrates the interdependence of driving revenue and DEI
As a longtime advocate and leader in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space, when Savills North America Chairman & CEO Mitchell “Mitch” Rudin joined the company in 2019, he immediately worked with the firm’s leadership team to launch the Junior Broker Development Program, a 15-month rotational initiative aimed at giving candidates who have graduated from four-year institutions the opportunity to advance their commercial real estate careers.
Rudin, an industry icon, previously served as CEO of Mack-Cali Realty (now Veris Residential), CEO and president of U.S. Commercial Operations at Brookfield Office Properties, and CEO and president of CBRE’s New York Tri-State Region. He joined ULI in 1994 and has since been a member of the Urban Development/Mixed Use Product Council on Bronxze, Gold, and Green flights. In addition, he served as a trustee and is a member of the Governors Society of the ULI Foundation, which helps advance the mission of the Institute.
“I’ve had the opportunity to speak with Mitch,” says ULI senior vice president of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Sonia Huntley, “and his support of DEI is clear by what he has accomplished in his organization. It’s important that DEI happens with a collective group of people from all ethnicities and all genders. CEOs across our industry, like Mitch, have the authority to move the ball forward in transformational ways. I celebrate his efforts for continuing to be a strong advocate and ally of DEI.”
The Savills chief executive has built diverse leadership teams, and facilitated or sponsored several women’s networks He also cofounded CBRE’s African American Network Group (now the Black Excellence United group or BeU), which established the Mitchell E. Rudin Diversity Award in his honor. Recently, Urban Land spoke with Rudin about his impactful programs and what they mean for the future of the industry.
Urban Land: Tell us about the success you’ve had with the Junior Broker Development Program.
Mitch Rudin: When I joined, I felt that [given] the way we work … there needed to be an improved way to onboard junior professionals here, both in terms of creating a broader outreach, and also in terms of lowering attrition. Particularly on the sales side, attrition is significant—[it’s] very high. You talk to different companies, and the industry averages for people who are onboarded without any formal training program could be an attrition rate of more than 80 percent.
So, we did two things: we established this program to make sure we were getting a broad enough outreach . . . to diverse populations—people of color, [as well as] looking at gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
We’ve been quite successful in terms of the program. We’re about to start our fourth year, and retention is running well over 70 percent, which is candidly quite extraordinary, particularly during the COVID environment. We’ve identified some outstanding professionals who have moved to different parts of the organization.
Today I just finished a meeting. We’re going through a systems implementation, and one of the members of the first class is now part of that systems team working with our headquarters in London. His words to me, as we ended the meeting: “I’m really getting to understand this entire organization from the inside out,” which has really created a unique opportunity for him.
We have stood by the program, notwithstanding the financial ups and downs of the last few years. In fact, we doubled down on it during the first COVID year. [We] actually expanded the program [to a total of seven U.S. offices] and have continued at constant levels throughout.
UL: As an industry, commercial real estate lost so many good people in the last financial crisis …. That’s great to hear that the program is working and young leaders with diverse backgrounds are finding commercial real estate as a career path.
Rudin: We stand behind them for 15 months, at least, to let them get their footing. Counter to the generalizations and things you might read regarding [members of] gen-Z, we see great work ethic and great culture carriers. When people started to return to the office, [program participants] were the “first in, last to leave.” Even Friday was an office day for them.
I hear from many of them on the weekends, and they really have developed a passion for the industry and a passion for the company.
UL: Can you tell us about Savills’ Employee Resource Groups?
Rudin: We have four. The first two were easy to get started, because there was strong interest for them …. [They were] BEU [Black Excellence United] and then our Women’s Initiative Network [WIN]. They’ve since been followed by our Pride+ Group and Young Savills Network [YSN]. Our approach was [to] help facilitate the first two, and certainly the next two, but we now look forward to seeing what interest exists for others within the company. We’re on the second generation of leadership in all four of the groups, just because they’ve developed enough maturity and are into succession planning. Sort of like being a ULI trustee for a few years, and then it’s time for the next group to come in.
Each group has developed a level of maturity. They’ve been very successful at what they’ve done. Throughout August, BEU led a back-to-school supplies drive, just by way of example.
Our ERGs have been very effective, in many respects, including recruiting. We’ve developed a reputation, and I think it goes back to those three guiding principles of authenticity, access, and allyship that people have seen as legitimate, so we continue to attract diverse talent.
We view these [program participants] as best-in-class professionals who just happen to fit into some definition of diversity. So, recently, Ernie Jarvis joined us from Washington, D.C. [He’s] one of the leading spokespeople on DEI in the country. Ivan Boone joined us in Chicago not too long ago, and then, through bringing on board a strategic alliance within Integrative Partners, which was founded by Shawna Menifee.
Our head of Tri State research is Marisha Clinton who joined us last year . . . and is now co-head of BEU. They’ve all hit the ground running.
The original term for access came from Shawna. When she was here about six months, we were sitting together and she said, “Look, I came here because I knew that you were authentic, and the organization was authentic. But having been a 30-year professional in the real estate industry, [I find that] the most pleasant surprise is the amount of access that’s been provided to clients and other professionals.” I had two A’s until she added the third A, which was the access. [The partnership has] paid off in the amount of accounts she’s been introduced to; the kinds of business she’s helped generate for us; the relationships with third-party supplier networks and very core professionals, who have been terrific.
UL: Are there any industry groups that you would want to highlight in terms of [their] having a positive impact?
Rudin: Because your fall event is in Los Angeles, one of the best groups that I’ve seen—and most influential—is AAREP LA [African-American Real Estate Professionals]. Their leadership is extraordinary, as is their membership and collaboration.
UL: Can you talk more about how you lead with “authenticity, allyship, and access”?
Rudin: We have, as I said before [been making] sure we are getting the best professionals, and we are creating the environment to be as inclusive as possible. It all starts with authenticity. Having the advantage of 20-plus years of industry history with this certainly helps it.
In concert with that goes allyship …. [We] indicated that support through each of the ERGs that have come along, and that runs across the organization. We have some outstanding people.
Two of the most significant acquisitions we’ve done in the last three years included Macro and T3 Advisors. Michael Glatt (Macro) and Roy Hirshland (T3 Advisors) each built organizations committed to access and diversity.
If you look across parts of our leadership team here, we recently promoted Janet Woods to president of the East, and Ann Duncan Inman who’s our Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Diversity Officer. We’ve shown a commitment to diversity both in word and deed.
And then, thank you, Shawna for giving me the third A, “access.” We’re not putting you in a corner, we’re exposing you to the entire organization to succeed, which is the only logical thing to do.
BRETT WIDNESS is the online editor of Urban Land.
