Head of Corporate Real Estate & Workplace Strategy

About the Role

This is a unique opportunity to shape how a leading community-focused financial institution designs, delivers, and experiences work. As the Director of Corporate Real Estate & Workplace Strategy, you will define and deliver the future of M&T’s workplace, impacting how thousands of employees collaborate, innovate, and serve our customers every day.

You will guide a multi‑year transformation of a real estate portfolio that fuels growth, strengthens culture, defines how our employees work, and deepens our commitment to the communities we serve.

About The Portfolio

The portfolio consists of 1,200 properties (35% owned / 65% leased) and ~8.8MM sq. ft. portfolio (56% owned / 44% leased), with locations across 28 U.S. states and 5 countries.

Responsibilities

In this role, you will reimagine the future of work at enterprise scale—aligning space, technology, and human-centered design. You will modernize a significant and high-visibility real estate portfolio, build and elevate a strategic function that sets the long-term operating model for how M&T works, and influence decisions at the intersection of people, technology, and real estate across the enterprise.

• Define and lead enterprise-wide location strategy, portfolio planning, and real estate decisioning.
• Modernize space planning and workplace design to elevate employee experience, collaboration, productivity, and flexibility.
• Leverage data, utilization of analytics, and emerging technologies to create innovative, future‑ready workplaces.
• Oversee a diverse and strategically important real estate footprint—balancing cost efficiency, sustainability, risk, flexibility, and human-centered design.
• Build and lead a dynamic organization spanning workplace strategy, space planning, analytics, real estate operations, and project management.
• Partner across HR, Finance, IT, Security, Risk, and business leadership to anchor decisions in data and strategic alignment.
• Guide risk-informed decisions that steward millions in operational and capital investments.

Requirements

Ideal candidates will have 12+ years of leadership experience in corporate real estate, workplace strategy, facilities management, or portfolio management, as well as a proven ability to build enterprise-level real estate strategies and modern workplace models.

• Deep experience transforming workplace and space planning in hybrid, flexible, or distributed environments.
• Strong financial and analytical capability (forecasting, scenario planning, ROI modeling, utilization analytics).
• Expertise in workplace design, utilization technology, and emerging workplace tools.
• Exceptional communication, executive presence, and the ability to influence across senior leadership.

Qualifications

Preferred qualifications include an MBA or relevant advanced degree, as well as experience managing large, complex, or global real estate portfolios.

Pay

M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $157,500.00 - $292,500.00 Annual (USD). The successful candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation.

Location

Buffalo, New York, United States of America