Spotlight Series

Real Estate Leader Spotlight Series: A conversation with Jennifer Sinclair Hankerson

May 22, 2025

Jennifer, thanks for joining us. What initially led you to Corporate Real Estate / Workplace?

I actually came into this industry by accident. I don’t think many kids grow up saying, “I want to be in Workplace!” My undergraduate degree is in Communication, and my original plan was to work in Political Public Relations.

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While I was interviewing, I accepted a temp role at a construction company, and that changed everything. The owner took an interest in me, and I began learning how to read blueprints and manage projects. I quickly fell in love with construction and how things fit together. My next company supported me in earning my Master’s degree in Engineering, and here I am, 27 years later, still going strong.

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Tell us about your current role. What functions do you oversee? How large is the CRE team? Where does the department sit within the organization?

I’m the Director of Global Real Estate and Construction at DoorDash, where I oversee a portfolio of approximately 3.4 million square feet of mixed-use real estate. I lead a team of 15 professionals across Transactions, Project Management, Operations, and Design.

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We are part of the WREC team (Workplace, Real Estate, and Construction), which sits within the Finance organization.

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Tell us about your portfolio. What does it look like today and how is it evolving?

Today, I manage a global portfolio of approximately 3.4 million square feet spanning several countries around the world. It includes a wide range of spaces—from DashMart locations and Kitchens to corporate offices. The diversity of our portfolio reflects DoorDash’s constant growth and evolving business lines.

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We’re currently focused on optimizing for flexibility and engagement. That means consolidating in some areas, expanding in others, and designing spaces that better support hybrid work, innovation, and operational efficiency. As our business continues to scale and diversify, so does our real estate strategy.

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We are becoming more data-driven, employee experience-focused, and aligned with broader company goals around collaboration, efficiency, and talent attraction.

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Could you share a story of a project or initiative you spearheaded recently that had a major impact to how your team manages the portfolio?

One initiative we’ve been leading involves supporting the growth of our drone delivery program, currently underway through our global partnership with Wing. Unlike traditional site selection, this requires our Transactions, Operations, and Project Management teams to work together to identify unconventional locations, sometimes even open fields or remote spaces—that meet a very specific set of needs.

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It’s pushed us to think differently about real estate, moving beyond standard commercial spaces and into more experimental, tech-driven environments. We’ve had to build new processes for evaluating and approving sites, coordinate closely with our legal and regulatory teams, and move quickly while still maintaining control and consistency across the portfolio.

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This kind of work has made our team more flexible, more collaborative, and more innovative in how we approach site selection and portfolio strategy. It’s a great example of how real estate can enable business innovation, not just respond to it.

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What is your real estate tech stack? Are there any favorite processes or tools you think would be interesting for others to learn from?

We recently launched our own custom Salesforce tool to manage our entire end-to-end real estate process. Our broader tech stack includes a mix of systems that help us manage the portfolio, streamline workflows, and make data-driven decisions. We use these tools for lease administration, project tracking, facilities maintenance, and reporting, each one helping us stay efficient and aligned across teams.

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We’ve also integrated Jira to support agile project management, which helps us stay nimble and transparent across initiatives.

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On the reporting side, Tableau allows us to build dynamic dashboards that bring together real estate data with broader business metrics, giving us the visibility we need to make faster, smarter decisions.

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Looking ahead, we’re actively working to bring AI into our workflow — from smarter forecasting and risk analysis to automating repetitive tasks. The goal is to further enhance decision-making and free up time for more strategic work.

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What’s worked really well for us is focusing on tools that are easy to use and flexible enough to scale with the business. For us, it’s not about having the flashiest tech — it’s about choosing the tools that actually solve problems and move the business forward.

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What challenges do you see in the industry today? How do you think leaders need to evolve to address this?

One of the biggest challenges right now is figuring out how to do more with what we have. Capital efficiency is a top priority, expectations are high, and the way people use space is constantly evolving. We’re being asked to support flexibility, collaboration, and culture, while also managing costs and delivering fast, high-impact results.

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To keep up, leaders need to move beyond just managing space and start thinking more strategically. It’s not enough to be good at building, we also need to understand the business, use data to make smarter decisions, and collaborate closely with cross-functional partners like Finance, People, and Security/IT. The best leaders today are open to change, quick to adapt, and focused on creating spaces that truly support how people work, now and in the future.

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What’s next for the industry? What are you most excited about?

I think we’re at a turning point where workplace strategy is becoming a core part of business strategy. Real estate is no longer just about buildings, it’s about experience, performance, and connection. I'm excited to see how data, design, and technology come together to create spaces that are not only efficient, but also meaningful for the people who use them.

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What excites me most is reimagining how we support teams to do their best work, no matter where they are. There's no one-size-fits-all model, which gives us the chance to be creative, test new ideas, and build environments that truly reflect the way people want to work. It's a challenge, but it's also one of the most exciting times to be in this field.

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