Performance & Leadership

Value in property lies in
how it works,
not what it is.

Natalie Slessor

Property & People Leader  ·  Place Maker  ·  Speaker  ·  Sydney, Australia

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30
Years in
property
9,000+
Team led
across APAC
70%
Revenue growth
in 3 years
30/1500
AFR Women in Leadership
Finalist 2025

About

People don't experience buildings.
They experience what happens
inside and in between them.

Natalie Slessor is one of Australia's few social psychologists specialising in the built environment. For 30 years she has worked at the intersection of people, place and performance — as an occupier, consultant, developer and property management leader — always asking the same question: what does this place make possible?

Most recently she served as Executive Managing Director, APAC at CBRE, leading a property management business spanning 10 countries, 9,000 people and 4,500 assets. Under her leadership, the Pacific business grew revenue by 71% and more than doubled its EBIT margin — becoming the dominant platform across office, retail and industrial asset classes in the region.

Before CBRE, she spent 11 years at Lendlease across workplace, development, and investment management — including a central role in winning a US$22bn Silicon Valley master-planned project for Google. Earlier she led workplace strategy at Macquarie Bank, Woods Bagot, and the seminal London consultancy DEGW, where she worked with the BBC, GSK, Accenture, and the Ministry of Defence.

She is based on Sydney's Northern Beaches, and is a 2025 AFR Women in Leadership finalist.

Expertise

Three decades across every angle of real estate — as occupier, consultant, developer and operator — produces a perspective that doesn't fit neatly into one lane.

01
Place, Community & Experience
The founding discipline. Natalie has spent 30 years understanding how built environments shape human behaviour — and designing, advising, and leading organisations that take that seriously. From Australia's first activity-based workplace at Macquarie to ground-breaking precincts at Lendlease, workplace is where it all began.
02
Platform Leadership
Leading complex, multi-site, multi-country operations at institutional scale. At CBRE, Natalie restructured a 1,200-person Pacific business for accountability and growth — doubling margin, winning the largest outsource contract in the market, and building dominant market share across every asset class. Then expanded to APAC across 10 countries.
03
Strategic Growth
A track record of winning and building: the Google partnership at Lendlease, 100,000sqm of pre-commitments, a platform NPS of +60. Natalie has spent her career finding the growth in complex situations — and delivering it through people, product and positioning.
04
People & Culture
Natalie champions an upside-down leadership philosophy — cause-first, enabling others, soft power over self-promotion. Teams that Natalie has led stay, grow, and refer their friends. Building high-trust, high-performance cultures in commercially ambitious businesses is both a practice and a conviction.
05
APAC & Global
Operated across Australia, UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Silicon Valley. Deep experience navigating multi-country corporate structures, off-shore parent company governance, and institutional capital relationships across the Asia Pacific region.
06
Transformation
Energised by the challenge of bringing structure, consistency, and renewed momentum to vision-led organisations. Whether founder-led business, post-merger integration, or platform repositioning — the ability to read culture, earn trust, and profoundly change things without breaking them is the work Natalie finds most meaningful.

“Design is people.”

Jane Jacobs  ·  Urban theorist & author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Speaking

Natalie speaks from 30 years of doing, not just observing. Her talks are grounded, specific, and built around what audiences can actually use.

The Future of Workplace
What the next generation of work environments needs to get right — and why most are still getting it wrong
Upside-Down Leadership
Leading from beneath — cause-first, enabling others, building cultures where people do their best work
People & Place
The psychology of built environments — how space shapes behaviour, performance, and belonging
Women in Leadership
A non-linear career, relational intelligence, and the strategic use of soft power — a personal account
The Integrated Asset
Why the landlord/tenant divide is the last inefficiency in real estate — and what comes next
Sustainability & Experience
How the best buildings are making energy efficiency and great occupier experience the same conversation

Career

Thirty years across the full property value chain — occupier, consultant, developer, operator. Never the same angle twice.

2023 – 2026
CBRE
Executive Managing Director, Property Management APAC
Led the Pacific and then APAC property management platform across 10 countries, 9,000 people and 4,500 assets. Revenue grew 71% in three years; EBIT margin more than doubled in the same period. Dominant market share across office, retail and industrial. Won the largest outsource contract in the Australian market in 2024.
2012 – 2023
Lendlease
Head of Workplace  ·  Head of Customer, Digital & Place  ·  Head of Product Strategy
Eleven years across workplace advisory, development origination, and investment management. Central to winning a US$22bn Silicon Valley development mandate for Google. Delivered workplace strategy for Barangaroo, Salesforce Tower, Melbourne Quarter, Stratford in London, Paya Lebar Singapore, and Australia's first innovation asset at Melbourne Connect.
2011 – 2012
Woods Bagot
Workplace Strategy Practice Lead
Built and led the workplace advisory practice at one of Australia's leading design firms — commercially viable, market-facing, and highly sought-after.
2006 – 2011
Macquarie Group
Head of Workplace Strategy & Planning  ·  Head of Business Services Asia
Strategy behind 1 Shelley Street — Australia's first Activity-Based Workplace for 3,500 people. Then led Business Services Asia across 15 cities and 100+ people, navigating a GFC-driven restructure and six simultaneous office relocations across the region.
1996 – 2006
DEGW
Researcher  ·  Consultant  ·  Change Manager  ·  Practice Lead, Sydney
Ten years at the seminal London workplace consultancy — from researcher to practice lead. Clients included the BBC, GSK, Accenture, University of Cambridge, and Ministry of Defence in London; Macquarie, Woolworths, NAB, EY and Westpac in Sydney.

Let's talk about
what we could
build together.

Available for executive leadership conversations, board advisory, speaking engagements, and strategic consulting across property, workplace, and built environment.

in
LinkedIn Profile
@
nataliestelle@icloud.com
✆
+61 414 852 880
Location
Sydney's Northern Beaches, Australia
Education
BSc Psychology & Sociology, University of Bath
Grad Dip Environmental Psychology, University of Surrey
INSEAD  ·  Stanford d.school  ·  MIT REAP  ·  Chief Executive Women
Recognition
AFR Women in Leadership Finalist 2025
Advisory
PwC Future of Work Advisory Board
AHRI Future of Work Advisory Board