Page 26 - RC18-EDGE Spring.FINAL

JESSE CARRILLO
We’re now seeing a
trend to bring employees
back into the physical
space by improving the
work environment for
better collaboration.
24
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CIO, HINES
Jesse Carrillo is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Hines,
a privately owned global real estate investment, development and manage-
ment firm founded in 1957. Hines has a presence in 201 cities in 24 countries
and $111 billion of assets under management. Jesse has held numerous roles
during his 23-year tenure with the company and now, as CIO, is responsible for
directing all corporate technology, strategy and standards for Hines worldwide.
What major technology projects where you focused on last year?
Over the past three to five years, any time we were due for an upgrade, or we
were responding to a new system requirement, we’d first consider if it could
live in the cloud. We’re very cloud-opportunistic and at this point, 80 percent
of our technologies are cloud-based. Last year, we embarked on a big push
to roll out Office 365, so that all of our productivity apps were synced up and
everyone was on the same version of Office; followed by moving Exchange
into the cloud. The process is almost complete for our domestic base.
However, our international base is a little trickier. There are GDPR regulations
out of Europe, and virtually every country has unique retention policies sur-
rounding email—what can be stored in an email, where it must be stored, etc.
Having to sort through all the regulations and compliance issues has slowed
us down a bit, but the project should be significantly completed in 2018.
We also implemented a new global service desk, incident tracking system we
refer to as “myHelp.” When you think about a service/help desk, most think
about IT: tracking tickets, support, etc. But our system is a global help desk
for any business question or problem. Beyond IT, it’s a way to submit inci-
dents to other departments like HR, Risk Management, Legal and Marketing.
With offices and staff in 24 countries, we are very decentralized. Our goal with
myHelp is to build a more connected community. It’s also a way to be more
effective and efficient, so it’s a big win-win all the way around.
What are your highest priority technology initiatives in 2018 and what are
the drivers behind those initiatives?
We’re planning to implement a Tenant App to provide an enhanced co-work-
ing experience. We have been evaluating and piloting a few options with the
goal of partnering with someone developing a tenant-facing-tenant portal.
Essentially, the app will allow tenants to reserve space, see what’s going on in
their building or around their city, and include a social component so they can
connect with other tenants in the building. From finding a parking spot and
opening doors, to ordering food, reserving a conference room and signing up
for a yoga lesson – all done from your mobile device.
We believe this technology may be a catalyst that drives employees back into
the office. I’m a proponent of the virtual office and don’t see it going away, but
perhaps we have moved the pendulum too far. I think many organizations are
trying to fine-tune the balance between the two. We’re now seeing a trend to
bring employees back into the physical space by improving the work environ-
ment for better collaboration.