PODCAST: Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari On The Future Of Office Branding
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Office buildings are not known for generating brand identity or customer loyalty, certainly not in the way that hotels, gyms and airlines aim to. But that may have to change, according to Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari.
“The fact that historically people have not felt an affiliation or associate anything with a workplace brand does not mean that can’t be true in the future,” Hodari said on this week’s episode of Bisnow Reports. “Workplaces are at the beginning of their journey on that front.”
Industrious just launched a partnership with Nuveen to create a national tenant network, which will have Industrious running the shared spaces like lobbies, conference rooms and event areas, in all 64 of Nuveen’s office properties in 13 states.
The idea is for Industrious to help Nuveen to create an identifiable brand across its entire portfolio — something that may be a key part of the successful workplaces of the future, now that remote work has reshaped how we think about the office. Industrious as a business has grown significantly in the wake of the pandemic; CBRE has invested $330M since 2021 for example, and its footprint has expanded exponentially in the last year.
On the podcast, Hodari talks about the company’s growth strategy, downturn preparations — and landlords who are keeping their head in the sand about how the way people work has changed.
“It’s not really credible for most people that they spend the next seven years not leaving their living room, so the question is, ‘OK, well if that’s not quite going to work then what is going to work? And what does this new version of things look like?’” he said on the show. “That recognition that the workplace has to be somewhere that people want to go to, that they enjoy, that they feel engaged at is No. 1.”
