Graeme Steele Corporate Real Estate, Workplace Leadership & Capital Programme Delivery
Corporate Real Estate, Workplace Leadership & Major Capital Programme Delivery

Making sure the infrastructure of a business never holds the business back.

A 28-year career spanning hands-on construction engineering and project management to boardroom-level portfolio, workplace and capital-programme leadership across 35+ countries.

Global Portfolio Strategy Major Capital Programmes Workplace Leadership ESG & Decarbonisation Enterprise Resilience C-Suite & Board Advisory
Graeme Steele
Available for VP, Global Director and executive leadership roles · Greater London, UK

Executive Scale & Impact

Board-validated outcomes across multi-market portfolios.
28
Years across a career from graduate building engineer to Vice President
$45B+
Combined annual revenue of the global enterprises served
$600M+
Sale-leaseback transaction directed across US & European assets
$500M+
Capital projects delivered, $750M+ at today’s construction costs
$140M+
Annual Opex & Capex governed with full budget accountability
35+
Countries managed across the career, 30+ concentrated in EMEA & Russia
150
Personnel led across real estate, design & construction, environmental sustainability, EHS, security & business continuity
43%
GHG Scope 1 & 2 cut against a Board target, three years ahead of schedule
Sectors & Asset Classes

Breadth across industries & building types

Operational and capital-delivery experience spanning live-broadcast retail, heavy energy infrastructure, and luxury super-prime residential.

Retail, Media & Logistics
QVC Group · 5M+ sq. ft.
Media & live broadcast headquarters
Retail stores
Corporate offices
Fulfilment & distribution centres
Call centres
Energy, Industrial & Science
Baker Hughes · 150+ properties
Geo-Market headquarters
R&D centres
Chemical laboratories and storage
Heavy-lift industrial structures
Manufacturing facilities
Luxury & Super-Prime Residential
Woolf / Capita · West End, London
Super-prime West End apartments
High-end residential conversions
Large-scale waterside development
35+ Countries
worldwide

Global operational reach, with 30+ countries concentrated across Europe, Africa, Russia and the Middle East.

Profile
From the engineering detail to the boardroom, across multiple industries.

I help organisations extract maximum value from complex, multi-site operations, turning fragmented estates, teams, and functions into efficient, resilient enterprises that support corporate strategy.

My senior executive career spans two major global enterprises with combined revenues exceeding $45B. I started out as a building engineer and project manager, and that background has never left me. It means I tend to look at problems differently to most people at this level, I want to understand how things actually work before deciding what needs to change.

Working across energy, retail, live broadcasting, and construction, in 35+ countries and all sorts of building types, has given me something I find genuinely useful: when I hit a problem in one sector, I usually have a solution from somewhere else. That kind of cross-sector experience stops you getting trapped in the way one industry has always done things.

Over 28 years I have governed $140M+ annual budgets, directed portfolios across 35+ countries, led ESG programmes that got us to a 43% carbon reduction three years ahead of schedule, and run international crisis operations across 6 markets. The technical backdrop and the variety of experience are what tie it all together.

What I care about most is making sure the physical and operational infrastructure of a business works properly, and that it never becomes the reason a business cannot grow.

Areas of Expertise

Where I create enterprise value

01

Global Portfolio Strategy

Translating corporate objectives into agile, multi-market operating models, with full lifecycle accountability from acquisition and design through FM and disposal.

02

Capital Projects & Delivery

Delivering complex, high-value programmes, from R&D headquarters and industrial facilities to laboratories and specialist technical buildings.

03

Transactions & M&A

Executing landmark multi-party negotiations, sale-and-leaseback programmes, and real estate integration through mergers and acquisitions.

04

ESG & Decarbonisation

Designing and delivering fast-tracked sustainability strategies with board-level accountability, securing public commitments and outperforming them.

05

Enterprise Resilience

Formulating global crisis operations, EHS strategy, and business continuity frameworks that hold critical operations steady through macro disruption.

06

People-Centric Leadership

Building high-performing global functions through structured autonomy, empowering regional teams and developing direct reports to Director level.

Proven Leadership

Selected case studies

Vice President, Global Corporate Real Estate and Workplace Services (CREWS)
QVC Group
Global omni-channel retailer & live broadcaster. Progressed from International to Global VP.
Global Integration

Led the CREWS function (real estate, workplace, EHS, security and sustainability) across a 5M sq. ft. international footprint, transforming fragmented regional functions into a single unified global organisation supporting an enterprise workforce of over 17,000.

Value Creation

Led the CREWS workstream for a landmark $600M+ US and European fulfilment-centre sale-and-leaseback. Separately negotiated a three-way deal to exit a specialist French HQ and broadcast studio, avoiding $1.2M in strip-out costs.

ESG Leadership

Secured Board approval for a public-facing 50% carbon reduction target by 2030, then delivered a 43% cut in GHG Scope 1 & 2 emissions by end of 2025, three years ahead of schedule.

Financial Discipline

Reached “limit-of-efficiency” status: a 2024 third-party audit identified zero new savings opportunities, validating the maturity of the cost-optimisation approach.

Operational Resilience

Maintained uninterrupted 24/7 live broadcast and fulfilment operations throughout COVID-19, protecting the strongest sales performance the company had seen in recent years.

Regional Director, Real Estate & Facilities
Baker Hughes
Global energy technology. Promoted to Regional Director within 14 months, directing the full lifecycle of 150+ properties across 30+ countries.
Capital Delivery

Delivered $500M+ in capital projects, from R&D headquarters to chemical laboratories and heavy-lift industrial structures. Project-managed a complex $100M greenfield HQ expansion in Norway, navigating extensive rock blasting and archaeological excavation following the on-site discovery of a Viking burial ground.

M&A Integration

Led the real estate integration workstream for the GE / Baker Hughes merger across Europe and Russia / Caspian, combining overlapping estates onto a single set of standards.

Centralisation

Built and led the company’s first centralised international Facilities Management function across Europe and Africa, transferring 50+ facilities from local management into a professionally run global team, in step with parallel centralisation across other geographies.

Portfolio Resilience

Steered major portfolio consolidation through multiple industry cycles, proactively rightsizing ahead of downturns to protect capital while keeping critical operations running for key customers.

Cost Management

Launched a multi-year cost-reduction initiative that lowered cost-per-square-foot by 25% through procurement strategy, improved space utilisation and strategic leverage of underused assets.

Earlier Career
Construction Project Management & Building Engineering

Began as a Graduate Building Engineer with Taylor Woodrow in Ghana before moving to London, progressing from Programme Manager at HTA Architects to Project Manager at Woolf Ltd (latterly Capita). Delivered high-end West End residential, including 200 Oxford Street and super-prime apartments on Park Street, W1, and supported a 152-unit waterside development for London’s largest residential developer.

Winner Capita Successful Project of the Year
Winner Best Apartment, Evening Standard Homes & Property Awards for 200 Oxford Street
Highly Commended Best Conversion, Evening Standard Homes & Property Awards for 200 Oxford Street
Sustainability & ESG

Board-level commitments, consistently outperformed

A track record of securing public, board-approved sustainability targets, then beating them ahead of schedule.

#20
Newsweek Global Green List ranking (2014), the highest placement of any company in the global Energy sector.
43%
Reduction in GHG Scope 1 & 2 emissions by end of 2025, against a Board-approved 50%-by-2030 target, three years early.
2026
US fulfilment centres on track for zero waste, delivered ahead of the original 2027 target.
In Their Words

What colleagues & leaders say

A very dedicated, conscientious and professional leader with extensive experience managing corporate facilities across multiple markets. He has a strong commercial sensibility and adapts well to changing circumstances and needs.
Aidan O’Meara
President International, QVC Group
Graeme’s buildings always came in on or below budget and within the agreed time frame, many state-of-the-art facilities in very difficult locations. I cannot speak highly enough about the competency of his work.
Ralph Crabtree
Vice-President of Real Estate (Ret.), Baker Hughes
Among the finest leaders I have encountered in over two decades. He has the vision to drive organisations forward, the integrity to do so in the right way, and the human quality to bring out the best in the people around him.
Kei Nomura
Sr. Manager, Corporate Real Estate & Workplace Services, QVC Japan
An exceptional leader who made an enormous contribution to both the company and the global team. His advice was always helpful and pragmatic, even on critical decisions, under difficult circumstances.
Dr. Guido Hardkop
Director CREWS, Germany & Poland, QVC
A true champion for sustainability, driving energy efficiency, advancing zero-waste initiatives, and embedding these priorities into strategy and operations in ways that created real business value.
Stephanie R. Castle-Werner
Environmental Sustainability & Waste Reduction Advisor, QVC Group
A rare combination of humility, strategic thinking and genuine care for people. He approaches organisational design with rigour and objectivity, balancing what’s best for the business with deep respect for the people affected by change.
Eve Ostrovskaya, PCC
HR Business Partner, Global CRE Services, QVC / Qurate Retail Group
Experience across global enterprises
QVC Baker Hughes Woolf HTA Architects Taylor Woodrow
Active Advisory Work

Commercial Advisor, Con-Tech & Prop-Tech

Advising an emerging construction and property-technology business on commercial strategy, market positioning and corporate customer proposition, supporting go-to-market planning for SME housebuilders across London and the Southeast.

Mandate Availability

Open to the right mandate

Available for permanent, interim, or long-term contract mandates across corporate real estate, workplace leadership, and major capital programme delivery.

Education
Academic grounding in the discipline, not just the practice.
Postgraduate

MSc, Construction Project Management

Heriot-Watt University
Undergraduate

BSc Construction Management

Edinburgh Napier University · Upper Second-Class Honours
Engagement Gateway

Let’s discuss your portfolio.

For permanent leadership, interim mandates, or advisory engagements, the fastest route is a direct email.

Location Greater London, United Kingdom
LinkedIn /in/gwsteele ↗