Suzanne Cooper

Led global team responsible for site acquisition, disposition, leasing, development, and lease administration.

• Created and centralized a global real estate team to support and expand the business and real estate footprint.
• Sourced and contracted global internal and external design, transaction, and project management resources.
• Collaborated with internal business leaders to provide real estate solutions supporting operational objectives.
• Developed global standards, guidelines, and processes to make the team agile and responsive to the business.
• Maximized operational efficiency and effectiveness while providing cost effective solutions.
• Provided fiscal accountability with developing and managing operational and capex budgets.
• Expanded global footprint with multi-country real estate acquisitions and projects.
• Contributed to IT and Security global standards.

Provided expert guidance to the Business and cross-functional team members in optimizing the performance and cost of the real estate portfolio. Ensured long term alignment of real estate with business objectives through detailed market knowledge, due diligence, and exemplary leadership, project management, and negotiation skills.

• Managed the Americas real estate portfolio: 14.5M SF, 242 leased sites throughout 14 countries including the US, Canada, and Latin America region; six owned campus locations including the global headquarter site which was comprised of 7M SF across 52 buildings. (63% of Cisco’s global portfolio.)
• Developed and managed a $136M annual operating budget to within a 2% variance.
• Applied business acumen, relationship management, and negotiation skills to achieve: $1B in asset disposition sales (2008 – 2017); 2016 Annualized Rent and OpEx savings of $7.1M; 124 transactions; 59 acquisition sites (647K SF) incorporated into the portfolio; 42 site closures; Net leased portfolio footprint decrease of 271K SF.
• Led team to revise San Jose development agreement providing a 1.6M SF intensification of the main HQ campus and facilitated the sale of eight buildings (795K SF); with an additional 800K SF to be disposed in a second phase.
• Strategic vendor management of a team of 23 professional brokerage, lease administration, legal, and relationship management individuals in conformity to Global Master Service Agreements and Service Level Agreements.
• Ensured service provider performance through assessment, audit, and ongoing analysis of market transitions and business needs. Participated in quarterly business reviews. Provided governance and drove global consistency and relevance. Performance management in accordance with Balanced Scorecard and KPI metrics.

Led client relationship, transaction, planning, and project delivery, and influenced operation services for the Eastern US, Midwest, and Canadian regions. Delivered corporate real estate services and solutions to the business.

• Executed transactions and improved and maintained key business relationships for NYC, Canada, and the Southeast. All projects delivered on time, within budget, and with high customer satisfaction levels.
• Empowered a team of four Workplace Managers and fostered teamwork and collaboration with cross-functional peers. Ensured operational excellence in the delivery of projects, services, and support to the business.
• Delivered the first alternative workspace in the Americas, in NYC, on time, within budget, and resulted in high satisfaction and a recognition award from the business.
• Educated, communicated, supported, and set expectations with the business to rationalize real estate needs relative to industry trends, policies, standards, and corporate direction. Addressed business escalations to corporate policy makers for informed decision making to prioritize accordingly.
• Inspired change and reinforced change management strategy to help drive consistency and adoption within the workplace. Pro-actively understood local and regional business priorities and effectively translated these to corporate real estate solutions, plans, capital pipeline, and services.
• Supported and implemented M&A integration strategy and influenced consolidation opportunities.

• Led transaction management and lease administration services. Managed outsourced brokerage and legal service providers in alignment with corporate guidelines and standards.
• Collaborated with outsourced real estate and legal providers in the development of standards, forms, templates, processes, tools, playbooks, preferred lease provisions, critical date reporting, and measurement criteria related to service delivery.
• Implemented best practices and process improvement to achieve delivery consistency and scalability.
• Provided governance for US and Canada real estate transaction delivery and negotiations and ensured compliance to corporate and functional standards.
• Benchmarked the portfolio on a quarterly basis and identified market and portfolio optimization opportunities.
• Originated a global green leasing program which was recognized for Corporate Real Estate Innovation by the Environmental Defense Fund and Sustainability Roundtable, Inc.
• Initiated bio-diversity tracking, reporting of endangered species and flora in support of Cisco's Corporate Social Responsibility goals and Annual Reporting.
• Negotiated and sold three buildings in Raleigh, NC, resulting in a brokerage commission savings of $1M.
• Liaised with Tax for Appeal support, netting $3.5M in savings in one year.
• Led the legal RFP and selection of US-based real estate legal service providers resulting in operational efficiency through a reduction of legal fees.
• Coordinated with Risk Management and negotiated rights to self-insure resulting in savings of $780K.
• Devised creative solutions with preserving the HQ address, despite selling the original HQ building; and negotiated cattle grazing lease for land compaction in order to facilitate a land habitat donation.
• Evaluated and participated on numerous corporate real estate related service provider RFPs.
• Provided subject matter expertise and negotiation with respect to land use, entitlements, easements, development agreements, eminent domain, estoppel reviews, purchase & sale, and lease agreements.

CORENET, Global New England Chapter

Serving 600+ individual members and 65 sponsor companies, it is a professional services organization dedicated to connecting corporate real estate professionals to advance knowledge, promote personal excellence, and add value to each individual and their respective enterprises.