Boston, MA The New England Chapter of CoreNet Global will gather together this spring to honor the 2022 winners of its annual Awards of Excellence, representing the best of the Boston region in corporate real estate leadership. Winners will be formally presented with their awards at the organization’s live, in-person Awards of Excellence Gala on April 27, 2023 at the Westin Boston Seaport District.

Leadership Award Winners

Americas Corporate End User Leadership: Bill Callahan, director of workplace experience, Seismic.
As the director of workplace experience for Seismic, Callahan is responsible for delivering an exceptional workplace experience for the company’s 1,500 global employees, working across over a dozen offices in EMEA, APAC, and North America. Seismic helps organizations engage customers, enable teams, and ignite revenue growth. Callahan takes that mission to heart in his own role, spending the past year working with his team to envision, create, and implement a flexible workplace strategy to meet the needs of Seismic’s dispersed workforce. Prior to joining Seismic, Callahn served in various workplace experience roles at Oracle, NetSuite, and Eze Software Group. Callahan holds a degree in history and environmental studies from Bowdoin College and a master’s of education from Harvard University and is an active member of his local community.

Global Corporate End User Leadership: Jill Zunshine, senior vice president & head of global real estate, facilities, and procurement at Takeda Pharmaceuticals.
Zunshine, SLCR & CPSM, is a corporate real estate, procurement, supply chain, and operations executive, an MBA and engineer with over 20 years in life sciences, technology, financial services, telecom, and manufacturing. At Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a global, values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical leader with a 50,000-strong workforce and with over $30 billion in revenue, Zunshine is responsible, worldwide, for global real estate, facilities, site security, and meetings & travel, as well as global procurement, including direct, indirect, and R&D procurement. She is also co-sponsor of Takeda’s Climate Action Program and executive co-sponsor of Takeda’s Gender Parity Network in the U.S. Under Zunshine’s leadership, Takeda has unified several complementary but previously separate functions, realizing synergies, savings, and cash of over $2.8 billion and a boost to R&D investment and pipeline development. At Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), Zunshine was responsible, worldwide, for all corporate real estate functions and facilities including labs, manufacturing plants, warehouses, data centers, and offices totaling 60 million s/f for HP’s workforce of 300,000. Zunshine earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She also completed executive education at Harvard Business School.

Americas Service Provider Leadership: Marc Margulies, owner & principal, Margulies Perruzzi Architects.
Margulies is an award-winning architect, community leader, real estate industry mentor, and philanthropist who has made a difference in the communities where he lives and works. After serving as Fidelity Investments’ manager of real estate design, Margulies founded Margulies & Associates in 1988. Now known as Margulies Perruzzi (MP), Margulies has grown the firm to one of New England’s top architectural and interior design firms, focusing on workplace, health, science & technology, and real estate development projects. Margulies strongly believes that people are deeply affected both by their workplace and by where they live, and that architects can contribute enormously to making businesses more successful and their employees happier. His clients recognize the value of this expertise, resulting in commissions to design and strategize on many exciting and provocative headquarters projects. Margulies is also involved in a number of volunteer efforts, most notably working on behalf of Boston’s Wharf District Council to develop waterfront resilience to rising sea levels, and on designing and building cost-effective modular micro-units for the homeless.

Global Service Provider Leadership: Iramis Luz Audet, principal, Perkins Eastman.
A principal at Perkins Eastman and the national co-practice leader for the Workplace Studio, Audet has more than two decades of experience dedicated to workplace design. Her passion for the industry is evident in her close working relationships with her clients, consultants, and colleagues. Audet’s ability to balance detailed design with project- and financial-management skills makes her a strong, respected mentor and leader and a valued client partner. Her projects range from 500 to 500,000 s/f and, regardless of size and scope, she is dedicated to providing superior service and developing well-designed solutions tailored to each individual client. Audet is both NCIDQ certified and a LEED accredited professional. She received a bachelor of fine arts degree in interior design from the University of Massachusetts. Audet is dedicated to serving the community and volunteers for local river clean-ups, charity walks, and a local multi-service community center that provides women emergency shelter and meals.

Young Leader Award: Cerise Marcela, senior vice president, CBRE.
Marcela is a senior vice president at CBRE co-leading the consulting practice in the Boston office. Marcela advises occupiers and investors on identifying strategic opportunities that speak to broader business objectives such as workplace and workforce strategy, portfolio optimization and employee experience. Marcela joined CBRE in 2019, right before the pandemic took hold. Through a period of uncertainty in the market, her initiatives were instrumental in the development of CBRE Boston’s thought leadership and research, including co-authoring the monthly Boston Recovery Metrics, Return-to-Office Benchmarking, and establishing Life Sciences Real Estate Metrics. Her leadership in life sciences consulting has resulted in a strong foundation for client relationships across the U.S. market, such as in Seattle, New York, and San Francisco. Marcela is also a member of both CoreNet New England’s and CBRE’s DE&I committees, helping to elevate discussions and awareness on the matter. Cerise holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cornell University with a focus on human-centered design, real estate, and workplace research.

Volunteer Hall of Fame: Sandra Gucciardi, director of Business Development, STV.
Over the course of her 25-year career, Gucciardi has supported key clients and projects in the Greater Boston region, while also being an avid participant in industry organizations. The director of business development at STV, she joined the firm in March 2018 and is responsible for client strategy and business development initiatives in the corporate, life science and academic business sectors for the construction management division. Gucciardi’s participates in industry organizations including CoreNet, where she is a graduate of Leadership 2.0, co-chair of the Education Committee, and on the Real Advantage and DEI Committees. She is also active in the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), where she is a board member, co-chairs its Workplace Evolutionaries (WE) Boston Hub and is VP of the Engagement Committee; Women in Bio (WIB) and ISPE and Women in Pharma (WIP). Gucciardi recently co-founded Boston’s Real Estate Consortium, a multidisciplinary industry team continuing to conduct a knowledge share of current industry best practices and due diligence around workplace design and construction requirements in the post-COVID world.

Best Workplace Award Winners

Best New Small Workplace: The Edge Center for Innovation (Submitted by J.Calnan & Associates, Officeworks Inc., Visnick & Caulfield and WB Engineers + Consultants)

The Edge Center for Innovation opened its doors in early June 2022 to clients, partners, and prospects for executive briefings as part of Pega’s Executive Edge program. The mission of this space is to put power into clients’ hands with the support of Pega experts. Using tools like executive briefings, Pega can listen to, consult, and inspire clients by showcasing what their future success can look like with Pega solutions and support. The team leverages the vast capabilities of The Edge Center to host hybrid meetings that create a sense of closeness with clients who are often globally situated.

The Edge Center has helped Pega generate opportunities with the world’s largest brands across industries and an overwhelming majority of clients have indicated that participation in an executive briefing increased their confidence in Pega.

This facility has enabled Pega to focus on maintaining strong client relationships as well as helping clients achieve their business goals.

Best New Large Workplace: Verizon at The Hub (Submitted by Gensler)

Committed to Boston and its flourishing technology community, Verizon is the anchor tenant in the southern tower of The Hub on Causeway, a mixed-use development located on the city’s waterfront. Verizon’s vertical campus is designed to be a tech-enabled workplace that offers a fully connected environment to support a variety of work modes. Primary or individual seating, choice-driven dynamic spaces, and technology-equipped collaboration areas allow employees to author their own days. Amenities are organized throughout the vertical campus in two-story communities, extending to a total of seven double-height porches. A three-story Innovation Center immerses customers and external partners in Verizon’s emerging technologies through a variety of touchpoints. Guests can explore what Verizon can do for their business, commercial, or academic applications. Verizon’s new workplace at The Hub is an example of how physical design and digital integration can propel an established company into the next generation of innovation.

Best New Workplace Outside of New England: PepsiCo Canadian Headquarters (Submitted by Sasaki)

PepsiCo’s new Canadian headquarters is centered on enabling ways to focus, celebrate and connect. These goals had to be combined with new workplace metrics and a shift to an agile workspace, reflecting the new work-from-home policy of PepsiCo. This shift was realized by replacing full offices with more individual desks, which reduced the seat count to 1:2 and improved the amount of communal space while reducing the overall office footprint. The new space also “lives the brand” through a series of Hydration Stations to try PepsiCo products, areas for celebration, and areas for reflection. Creating a central heart of the space was also a critical element to the project because the office was bringing together two formerly separate facilities. The new heart of the space allows people to gather together, serves as a cafe space, and can flex to hold meetings of many sizes. By creating this space for connection and productivity, PepsiCo has been able to bring its Canada-based food and beverage teams together and reinforce the company’s mission and workplace goals.