JLL Names Nashunda Williams As New Diversity And Inclusion Chief
JLL is replacing its chief diversity officer, just over one year after the brokerage created the role.
Nashunda Williams has been named head of diversity, equity and inclusion, the brokerage announced Tuesday. She takes the reins from Ingrid Jacobs, who was appointed in January 2021 and was the first person to hold the brand-new job.
“A culture of diversity, equity and inclusion is core to our purpose of shaping the world of real estate for a better world and one of my top priorities is providing environments where all our people feel they belong,” JLL CEO Christian Ulbrich said in a statement.
“Nashunda’s strong background in diversity and inclusion, her proven leadership and project management skills, plus her experience working across different JLL teams around the world will help us drive deeper accountability, measurement, transparency and global connectivity for our DEI initiatives.”
Williams — who has been at JLL for six years and most recently served as senior director at JLL Technologies, according to her LinkedIn profile — will focus over the next two years on identifying “comprehensive actions” and “assessing future leadership investments that will accelerate JLL’s culture of DEI,” per the release.
Alongside her work at JLL Technologies, she founded JLLT’s global diversity and inclusion committee and has led the company’s Empower-Black Professionals Network in the United States.
The brokerage world is still largely controlled by White men, though many firms have pledged to diversify their ranks. Like JLL, brokerage CBRE created a chief diversity officer role in the summer of 2020, and Cushman & Wakefield followed suit in December of that year.
As of November, there were 19 people of color in top leadership positions at 16 of the largest commercial brokerages, down from 20 the year before, according to Bisnow’s analysis. New hires were balanced out by departures and retirements, as well as a few companies changing their leadership structures entirely. The number of women went down slightly too, from 49 to 47.
CORRECTION, FEB. 2:45 P.M. ET: Nashunda Williams founded JLLT’s global diversity and inclusion committee. An earlier version of this story misstated the nature of the committee.
