David Gialanella to Lead Cushman & Wakefield's New Global Services Group

NEW YORK CITY-Cushman & Wakefield has consolidated its Corporate Communications, Corporate Quality, Business Development and Marketing groups to form its new Global Services Group. The company has also appointed David Gialanella as executive vice president to lead this endeavor. Gialanella spoke with GlobeSt.com today to share his view of the new direction for Cushman & Wakefield and the market.

“If one looks at the evolution of not just our firm, but the industry, in the last three to four years there has been a move to becoming far more structured, more corporate one could say,” Gialanella says in response to a question from GlobeSt.com about why the company sought to consolidate these operations. “It’s far more global than it’s ever been. Service providers by the nature of the business have to be borderless.”

“In Indian, Korea, 29 countries in Europe — we can speak more effectively if we speak with one voice, if there’s consistency — even though we speak different languages and have different cultures,” he adds. “From a business development standpoint, we need to provide clients with consistency, grow in our markets, vertically integrate technology to better manage relationships with clients — we have to ensure that every assignment is handled as consistently in India as it would be in Orlando, FL.”

” We can increase our market share in two ways: bring in new clients and expand how we service existing clients. Our whole focus is really on the second case, helping to accomplish the first.” He also says, “ We want all of our communications from our market reports to our letterhead to be the same and have everything be coordinated through our New York headquarters with everyone around the globe feeling equally involved. We’ll oversee the Americas from here, Europe from an office almost as large as this one and Asia and Australia from a third in terms of communications.”

“Everything has to be done in harmony. I’ve been traveling all over. I just got back from Australia. This globalization of our operations works with clients too,” he reports. “No matter how technologically advanced we become, nothing can take the place of face to face contact. If you’re trying to win the confidence of someone in Asia or in Brussels, you’ve got to show people they can trust you.”

This personal touch should not be mistaken for a lack of interest in technology he notes. “I don’t want to underestimate the role of technology,” he says. “We’ve made serious investments in technology with upgrades of our C-Web Intranet, executive information system, hardware, software and other initiatives to create a global platform between 2000 and 2001.”

“The key, though, if you’ve got to rank it,” he concludes, “is really making everyone in the company feel part of something — to make the receptionist in London or Australia feel as much a part of our efforts as Barbara here in New York.”