CBRE Hires Meta Alum Annie Dean to Run Strategy for Building Experience

CBRE has hired a former director at social media giant Meta as a senior executive for one of its business segments and to lead its new joint project with Industrious.

Annie Dean, who previously served as Meta’s director of remote work for Facebook, has been named CBRE’s new global chief strategy officer for its Building Operations & Experience business segment, according to a release. Dean has also been tapped to lead a newly formed project called the CBRE x Industrious Building Experience Lab.

As part of CBRE’s recent $400 million acquisition of coworking firm Industrious, the new lab aims to “transform offices, logistics centers, storefronts and other commercial settings into more human-focused, empowering and delightful places to work,” as well as use “applied innovation” to create real-world products, the release said. Any products developed in the lab can also be “implemented in partnership across the CBRE platform,” according to the release.

“How we work has fundamentally changed,” Dean said in a statement. “Businesses collaborate through technology, which has never been more true in the age of AI. When everything is virtual, the real world matters more than ever. And as a result, the world is ready for a different kind of workplace experience.

“We need to turn workplace functions from a cost-center, shared-services mentality into a strategic business unit that delivers ROI, and shifts from space utilization into a user-centered mentality and processes that look like product development cycles,” Dean added. “Data is at the center of this opportunity.”

In addition to her past role at Meta, Dean has “led workplace experience and flexible work efforts” at companies including software firm Atlassian and her own startup, Werk.co. She has also held leadership roles at Deloitte, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel and the Kabuki Syndrome Foundation, according to her LinkedIn profile.

News of the hire comes as Industrious announced this week it will open three new locations in Manhattan — at 120 East 23rd Street, 1437 Broadway and 5 Columbus Circle — by the end of this year, adding onto its more than 250 locations across over 65 global cities.

The new Manhattan locations will operate under the coworking firm’s Indy by Industrious brand, which offers “flexible, high-quality experiences for companies and individuals who may not need everything our traditional locations provide but who still value exceptional hospitality,” according to a release from the firm.

The brand works in tandem with the new Industrious Building Experience Lab, which Dean will spearhead and which will work to create an office environment for today’s flexible and hybrid work culture.

“We’ll be working with our most demanding clients, partnering with researchers and designers, and most of all spending time with users until people see that workplaces and commercial real estate can deliver the kind of experiences that are typically associated with great hotels, cruises or restaurants,” Jamie Hodari, CEO of CBRE’s Building Operations & Experience segment, said in a statement.

“I searched long and hard to find the right person to lead this effort, and within two minutes of meeting Annie Dean, I knew we had found our leader,” Hodari added.

A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.