Position Title: VP Leasing & Real Estate Operations (E1)
Company Summary
Crown Castle is the nation’s largest provider of shared communications infrastructure: towers, small cells and fiber. It all works together to meet unprecedented demand—connecting people and communities and transforming the way we do business. Whenever you make a call, track a workout or stream music and videos, we’re the ones providing the communications infrastructure that makes it all possible. From 5G and the internet of things to drones, autonomous vehicles and AR/VR, we enable the technologies that help people stay safe, connected and ready for the future. Crown Castle is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (CCI), is part of the S&P 500 and is one of the largest Real Estate Investment Trusts in the US.
We offer a total benefits package and professional growth development for teammates in any stage of their career. Along with caring for our teammates, we’re an active member in the communities where we live, work and do business. We have a responsibility to give back, which we do through our Connected by Good program. Giving back allows us to improve public spaces where people connect, promote public safety and advance access to education and technology.
Role
The VP Leasing & Real Estate Operations leads a 200-person organization responsible for supporting customer leasing efforts across a nationwide portfolio of 40,000 wireless communications tower sites while managing Crown’s real estate interests to ensure long-term economic and operational control. This role requires a visionary leader who can drive growth, optimize performance, and foster a culture of collaboration and accountability within the organization.
Responsibilities
Lead functional teams within Leasing & Real Estate Operations including:
Contract Development
CD team is responsible for preparing and executing site level lease agreements for Crown’s tower business. This includes preparing and reviewing key contract terms to ensure alignment between the application and the legal entities, master agreements and landlord obligations at the site.
CD team is responsible for monitoring progress of agreements that are inflight to ensure all open contingencies are resolved prior to full execution of progression to Contract Operations for revenue commencement.
In addition to preparing and executing site level agreements, the CD team is responsible for contract compliance involving the setup, maintenance, and data management of account and master contract information for all customer account structure levels.
The final area of responsibility covers quality assurance and quality control. The CD team is focused on proactively identifying, assessing and addressing risks associated with inaccuracies, omissions, or necessary revisions in customers contracts to drive continuous improvement in an environment with evolving deals and processes.
Tower Tenant Support
The team has three primary areas of responsibility: 1) production management; 2) order-related real estate contingencies; and 3) land & rooftop management.
With respect to production management, the TTS team is responsible for reviewing applications to determine if a customer can install where they initially requested on the tower and ground. The team coordinates closely with the Assets org to provide mount analysis, mount mappings and mount design drawings.
The order-related real estate team is responsible for real estate scoping and review of lease rights to determine scope of work and utility access availability. The real estate team is also responsible for identifying and clearing all real estate contingencies, including securing consents, LOAs, notices and add-lands.
Land & rooftop management team is responsible for managing all real estate activity for Crown owned rooftop, limited rights sites, land under 3rd party tower sites, and land only sites where no tower exists. The team also manages intercompany real estate transactions involving portfolio sites (AT&T towers, T-Mobile towers, and Sprint/Global Signal towers) that contain various contractual obligations associated with the purchase agreements.
Real Estate Operations
This team has responsibilities that include managing closings for real estate transactions (purchases and extensions), tower abandonments, title & legal rights research, and real estate data certifications.
Transactional closings are critical to internal controls and audit compliance, reviewing every transaction package prior to transmitting all documentation to Contract Operations to ensure integration into CCI sites and JDE.
Non-order related real estate work includes leading settlement negotiations with landowners, foreclosure prevention and response, support for Tower Field Operations, and NOC incident call resolution.
Team that is responsible for real estate site certifications also takes the lead on data governance & transformational program support, process improvement and reporting.
Real Estate Acquisitions & Site Development
Team is responsible for managing all real estate origination activity for purchases and lease extensions, aligned to strategic goal of maintaining long-term economic and operational control of Crown’s 40k real estate interests.
Origination team includes internal site acquisition specialists focused on more complex, shorter dated sites. Internal resources are augmented by external vendor resources that manage longer-dated maturities (sites expiring between 2 and 10 years).
Negotiating team coordinates with site development team to determine if tower relocations & consolidations will create more value for Crown relative to lease extensions or buyouts on certain sites. Team is also responsible for negotiating optimal financial and operational terms with developers looking to redevelop areas where a Crown tower exists.
The strategic relocation site development team is responsible for site acquisition activities for new site builds and relocations, including zoning, permitting, and construction coordination. This team also negotiates directly with carrier customers to secure license increases and capital contributions on existing sites that are negative margin or where lease extensions require an increase in ground rent.
Team is also responsible for critical portfolio compliance, including utility reimbursement, landowner registration, and renewals of conditional use permits.
Expectations
Deep understanding of Crown’s strategic objectives with an ability to translate those objectives into an operational strategy for the leasing and real estate operations teams.
Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing team, fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and professional development.
Strong financial and business acumen to inform strategic capital allocation decisions across Crown’s real estate portfolio.
Strong communication and collaboration skills, with an ability to scale up and down the organization to translate complexity and ambiguity into a clear and understandable action plan.
Data-driven decision maker with a solutions-oriented approach and demonstrated ability to drive results.
Education/Certifications
Bachelor’s degree technical field – Electrical/Civil Engineering
Master’s degree is preferred
Experience/Minimum Requirements
Ten+ (10) years’ leadership experience in telecommunications industry
Extensive profit & loss management responsibility in a dynamic organization, including financial analysis and budget development
Extensive experience developing and operating wireless networks and communication towers
Extensive knowledge of site acquisition, zoning, and construction management procedures
Proven experience managing a distributed workforce across multiple domains
Proven track record with implementing innovative approaches to business problems
Strong understanding of the regulatory and policy landscape in the telecommunications industry
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build trust and credibility with a wide range of stakeholders
Strategic thinking, problem-solving, and prioritization skills, with the ability to anticipate and navigate complex regulatory and policy challenges
Strong leadership and management skills, with experience managing teams of geographically distributed professionals
Organizational Relationship
Reports to: Tower COO
Title(s) of direct reports (if applicable): Director National Real Estate Operations, Director National Real Estate Acquisitions, Director Leasing Operations, Director Contract Development
Working Conditions: This role falls into our hybrid work model working in the office Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. On Mondays and Fridays, teammates on the hybrid schedule will have the option to work from the office or home. There is an expectation of collaboration with teammates and stakeholders for moments that matter that could require travel.
Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)
