For the kinds of changes the world’s biggest real estate services firm was aiming for to knock down the silos between its research and brokerage arms, an outside-the-box hire seems like a natural choice for its new Americas head of retail research. And that’s exactly what they got in Melina Cordero.
Melina does not have a background working for a large commercial real estate firm. Her previous job was launching the American platform of a British retail analytics startup called Path Intelligence, which went out of business (not her doing). Before that, she was working in urban planning policy for Parliament. The original one, not the George Clinton one.
Oh, there’s one more thing: she’s 28. But, she says, her age never came up in conversations with CBRE, and her ideas for the future of the retail research division were far more important to CBRE’s Americas head of research Spencer Levy and its head of retail, Anthony Buono.
“My goal is for us as researchers to be indispensable for how the brokers do their business and their work,” Melina told Bisnow last week. “If you talk to Spencer and Anthony, they are on the exact same page.”
In a statement, Anthony (above speaking with Bisnow in 2013) said “Melina’s work at CBRE will be a key component of our multifaceted strategy for serving retail clients.”
Melina is a native of Prince George’s County (she still calls it PG County) and her home base will be DC after years in London and Miami. But she’ll be all over the country, doing on-the-ground research and helping broker teams sign deals nationwide.
That on-the-ground research includes diving more into key trends she sees having more of an impact on retail real estate in 2016: placemaking, technology/data and “clicks to bricks,” online retailers opening up brick-and-mortar shops, like Warby Parker and others have already done in DC. Even Birchbox, a subscription mailing service, has a kiosk in the Rent The Runway storefront in Georgetown.
“The cliché goes the Internet is killing physical retail, but it’s not,” Melina says. “It’s transforming it.”
