Today JLL appointed Cynthia Kantor as Chief Product Officer for its Corporate Solutions business to transform JLL’s current services and solutions into scalable products and bring new products to market. In this newly created role, she will lead the team responsible for managing a portfolio of compelling offerings that help clients enhance business performance. Kantor is based in Atlanta and reports to Neil Murray, Global CEO, JLL Corporate Solutions.
“Cynthia is a visionary leader with a 25-year track record of driving growth and leading transformation in a large, global organization,” said Murray. “In an environment of rapid and constant disruption, she will be a leader in developing the next wave of products that empower our clients to position their organizations for success by addressing critical business and workplace challenges and opportunities.”
Kantor joins JLL after more than two decades at GE where she served in various global product, portfolio and business management and marketing leadership roles in the Power, Aviation and Corporate Audit businesses. Most recently as Senior General Manager, Contractual Services, GE Gas Power, she managed the expansion and adaptation of product offerings to reflect changing client needs while transforming the global operating model to drive consistency across regions. Prior to that, she led product management and marketing for several divisions within GE Power & Water. She has also lectured at Georgia Tech’s Scheller Collegeof Business on the topics of managing innovation risk and leadership development in product management.
“Businesses have only scratched the surface in realizing the potential for workplaces to serve as a strategic lever for broader business objectives such as talent attraction, employee productivity and financial performance,” said Kantor. “I am excited to work with JLL’s talented team to transform our core services and solutions into scalable products that quickly adapt ahead of clients’ rapidly changing needsâultimately shifting how we solve client challenges and help them grow their businesses.”
Kantor’s appointment is the latest in a series of recent JLL senior executive hires who have spent their careers driving business transformation in disruptive industries outside of real estate. Most recently, former IBM executive Sanjay Rishijoined JLL as Americas CEO, Corporate Solutions, and former Google executive Vinay Goel joined JLL as Chief Digital Product Officer. Additionally, in 2017 JLL brought on two Silicon Valley veterans to launch JLL Spark, a global division dedicated to identifying and delivering new technology-driven real estate service offerings.
The mission of JLL’s Corporate Solutions business is to help clients create, shape and manage the future of work. And JLL’s latest Future of Work global CRE survey reveals a strong C-suite mandate for CRE to add more strategic value in supporting broader business goals, like attracting and retaining top talent. The impact of making that shift is clearâaccording to JLL’s research, companies with “Future Fit” CRE teams grew profits by an average of 31% from 2015 to 2018, while the remainder grew profits only by 19%. At present, only about 20% of CRE executives belong to the coveted Future Fit cohort.
