Paul Komadina

Q: What most notably stands out about your leadership style or what is an example of leadership success you can share with our readers?

My fundamental belief is that people do business with people they know and trust. This is especially important when people choose who they trust to lead them. I pride myself on being an open, honest and vulnerable leader who leads with care and compassion. I sit in the open with our employees and do my best to get to know them as people and for them to know me as a person, dad, husband, friend and colleague.

I also believe in empowering the next generation of leaders in the workplace and giving them the opportunity to lead early in their career. To make this reality at CBRE, I worked with another leader to develop a “Division Leader” program where we select an early to mid-career professional for each division of the company to help lead important initiatives. We meet quarterly for breakfast with an agenda based on YPO Forum, talk about life and work, and help each other grow to be their very best personally and professionally.

Q: What impact has COVID-19 or the disruptions of the past 18 months had on you as a leader?

One of the things that I’ve had to learn over the last few years is that you can’t say yes to everything. In order to be effective, you have to choose the things you do wisely. To choose wisely, you have to have clear priorities. I woke up in February 2023 and recognized that I had said yes to every organization and opportunity that was put in front of me. As a result, I realized that I was spread so thin that I was 30% in on everything and 100% in on nothing. I hadn’t set clear priorities for myself or for the business because I was so scattered. I spent seven months exploring what’s important to me as individual, a father, husband and leader of people at CBRE. As a result of setting clear priorities and expectations, I’ve been able to focus my time and energy on the things and people that are most important. The results have been gratifying and the benefits are manifesting in real and tangible ways.

Q: What do you feel we can be doing as a business community to empower economic growth here?

Education. Education. Education … and working together. Education is the backbone of everything, and we need to have a K-20 education system that prepares the people of Arizona for the economy and world of the future. I also believe that we have way too many groups that are trying to accomplish the same thing (in any discipline or area of need) and we are wasting time and money resources as a result. We need to focus on outcomes and not who gets the credit. Together, we can do great things and we need to reduce the duplication of efforts across our great community.

Q: What is new and notable for your company’s near future that will impact our economy?

The commercial real estate market has been disrupted as much, if not more, than any other industry as a result of the rapid rise in interest rates. As a result, we have seen a significant decline in transaction activity and building values across the market. Thankfully, the leasing fundamentals have remained relatively healthy and we hope that maintains in 2024 due to Arizona’s robust economic growth and amazing quality of life. CBRE will continue to be focused on impacting the community in a large and positive way by the real estate transactions we do.