Global Real Estate Director

In Schneider Electric, everything we do is geared towards advancing progress and sustainability for all—our colleagues, customers, partners, and the communities and societies we serve.

Whether it's through our products, software, and services that propel the digital transformation of energy management and automation, or through our corporate citizenship and volunteer activities, we make a meaningful impact by empowering people and organizations to become more resilient, electric, and digital.

Which is where you come in. Working at Schneider Electric means working toward a cleaner, better world. You are part of a global team built on inclusion, mastery, purpose, action, curiosity, and teamwork, turning sustainability ambitions into actions.

Location: Kallang

Mission (About the Role)

The Global Real Estate Director plays a critical global role within Schneider Electric’s Global Supply Chain organization, responsible for driving Real Estate strategy, Facility Management excellence and governance of Physical Security across a diverse international footprint, with sustainability embedded as a core expectation.

The role ensures global consistency, operational excellence, and long‑term productivity through strong governance, standards, data visibility, and cross‑functional leadership.

The global director partners with Corporate Functions, Regional Operations, SERE domains, and GSC leadership to deliver a resilient, sustainable and operationally efficient real estate portfolio aligned with Schneider Electric’s strategic ambitions.

What will you do?

Global Real Estate Strategy & Portfolio Governance

• Co define the global Real Estate strategy with Corporate RE, Industrialization, and GSC partners to support footprint optimization and business growth.
• Drive harmonization and transparency of the end to end property portfolio (offices, plants, warehouses, labs), including data quality, contracts, KPIs, and governance.
• Oversee and support Real Estate decisions across GSC property portfolio, ensuring alignment with strategic, financial, and operational priorities.
• Deliver analytics and insights (scenario planning, location strategy, make vs lease, consolidations, climate and nature scenario) to enable informed decisions on productivity and footprint evolution.
• Strengthen governance frameworks to ensure alignment between Corporate, Regional, and SERE teams.

Facility Management & Operational Excellence

• Build global IFM/FM capability through benchmarking, cost transparency, and data driven identification of outliers and productivity opportunities.
• Standardize and elevate FM practices globally, such as promoting convergence/sharing of regional best practices in operating model and innovation
• Embed sustainability FM practices and sustainable vendor selection criteria into the global FM model.

Physical Security

• Partner with Corporate Security, Regional FM, and Indirect Procurement on governance of guarding, access control, CCTV, visitor management, and incident response
• Global governance processes: KPIs, SLAs, vendor reviews, risk assessments, and escalation protocols.
• Integration of physical security standards within IFM execution models.
• Alignment with global resilience requirements and internal/external audit expectations.

Sustainability Operations & Climate Resilience

• Integrate climate risk assessment and adaptation planning into site strategy, footprint decisions and CapEx planning.
• Support Scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction by strengthening governance of Real Estate and Facility Management data, spending, and performance monitoring.
• Ensure sustainability standards (LEED, BREEAM, WELL) are applied in new tertiary buildings, major refurbishments, and acquisitions.[VM1.1][SD1.2]
• Own the RE/FM contribution to the Sustainability Cockpit and to external disclosure frameworks (CSRD, TCFD, TNFD).[VM2.1][SD2.2]

Cross-functional projects

• Lead or participate in transversal topics and initiatives across Real Estate, FM, SERE, Digital, Sustainability, and GSC strategy.
• Drive SERE Technical Debt Reduction initiatives (assets, systems, digitization).
• Support Schneider Electric’s Digital transformation, AI use cases, Sustainability Cockpit, and data driven decision tools.
• Support Winning Plan reporting, and coordination of steering committees.

Leadership and stakeholder management

• Act as the key global interface between GSC and Corporate Functions on Real Estate, FM, and Physical Security topics.
• Drive organizational alignment by bridging strategic, policy, and operational layers across Corporate, Regional, and Site teams.
• Influence senior stakeholders, navigate matrix structures, and resolve cross functional misalignments.

What qualifications will make you successful?

• Experience in global Real Estate, Facility Management, or related fields across a multi site, international environment.
• Knowledge of integrated facility management (IFM), service delivery models, and vendor governance.
• Strong understanding of real estate transactions (acquisitions, renewals, disposals) and portfolio optimization.
• Experience in climate and nature capital risk frameworks (TCFD, TNFD, scenario analysis), corporate decarbonization pathways, and sustainability disclosure (CSRD, GHG Protocol, SBTi).
• Proficiency in FM/RE systems, workplace management tools, financial modeling, and CapEx/Opex planning.
• Professional certifications such as IFMA (CFM), LEED AP, and GARP SCR preferred.
• Degree in Real Estate, Facility Management, Engineering, Architecture, Business or related discipline preferred.