About

Where Strategy Shapes Outcomes

Nicola Gillen is Head of Strategic Consulting for EMEA, with more than 25 years of experience across architecture, consulting and change management. Her work focuses on how early stage decisions shape long term outcomes for buildings, organisations and cities.

After two decades in design and engineering, Nicola joined Cushman & Wakefield to work with clients at earlier stages on projects, helping to shape strategy before delivery begins.

Nicola leads multidisciplinary teams that bring together expertise across geographies and sectors. Her work combines delivery experience with data, research and insight into the future of work, workplace and the city, enabling clients to translate complex challenges into practical, implementable strategies.

She works with clients across private and public sectors on challenges such as sustainability, regeneration, location strategy, the impact of technology and AI, and the evolving role of workplaces in cities and regions. Her approach is grounded in how buildings and places support people. 

A defining aspect of Nicola’s work is continuity. Her teams remain engaged beyond strategy into delivery and occupation, ensuring ideas are tested and realised in practice, and that outcomes are aligned to client, community and investment objectives.

Nicola is a widely published author and regular conference speaker. Selected work includes: 

• BCO, National Conference – Launching the BCO Data Revolution, 2026
• ‘Sustainable Returns‘, 2026
• Keynote, Women in Real Estate, WeWork, 2026
• Corenet, Amsterdam, ‘Inclusive Cities’, 2025
• ‘Purpose of Place’, Miller Knoll Webinar, 2025
• HR Leader Forum, Chicago, 2023 and 2024
• ‘Reworking the Workplace: Connecting People, Purpose and Place’, RIBA Publishing June 2023. Podcast and blogs
• RIBA J Intelligence ‘5 enduring trends in workplace design and what we need to do about’, May 2023
• Future Workplace, Times, 2023
• ‘Future Office’, Law&HR Magazine, 2022
• Hybrid Work: What the Office Could Look Like Now, BBC Worklife, 2021 
• Healthy Post-Pandemic Workplace, speaker, Henley Business School, 2021 
• The Future Legal Workplace, WORKTECH Academy/ BVN / C&W, 2021 
• RETHINK Design Guide: Architecture for a Post-Pandemic World, co-author, 2021 
• COVID-19: Reimagine How and Where the World Will Work, CRE Journal, 2020.  
• The Times feature, April 2020 
• COVID-19 Recovery Readiness blog series; Future of Work and Place, Road to Recovery
• Rebalancing the Work/Life Experience podcast 
• Future Office, RIBA Publishing, lead author, 2019 

Where Nicola Brings Smart Advice

Nicola supports clients on challenges where early decisions have long term impact, including:

• Strategic consulting at the earliest stages of project development
• Building repurposing and portfolio transformation
• Workplace and future-of-work advisory
• Location strategy and city level planning
• Sustainability and carbon-reduction strategy
• Regeneration and mixed use development planning

How Nicola Works

She engages early to shape direction.
Nicola works with clients at the earliest stages to define priorities and set a clear path.

She connects insight to delivery.
Her work combines research, data and project experience to create strategies that can be put into practice.

She stays through execution.
Nicola’s teams remain involved beyond strategy, supporting delivery and occupation to ensure outcomes are achieved.

Awards & Recognition

• BCO National Judging Chair 2026-2029
• BCO National Judge 2022-2025
• Visiting lecturer, Masters Course, IE School of Architecture and Design, Madrid, Spain, 2021, 2022, 2023.
• Bisnow 51 Women who survived and thrived in 2020 and 2021
• 2020 CIBSE Innovation Award nomination
• AECOM Fellow 2017

My Team

Nicola leads the Strategic Consulting team for EMEA. We bring together specialists across portfolio strategy, workplace and transformation, development and asset strategy, sustainability and social impact, and financial and commercial advisory. We stay accountable from strategy right through to execution.

Assignments

25 years of project work globally for occupiers and developers, including; workplace strategy, strategic briefing for cities, universities and cultural centres, organisational modelling (work patterns, culture), communications and change management, global workplace and design guidelines, experience design, space planning, feasibility studies and building appraisal.