About

Jonathan Gimblett is a UK qualified lawyer and joined Prologis in 2005 from Linklaters, where he specialised in international real estate transactions working in the UK, Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. As senior vice president and general counsel at Prologis he is responsible for establishing the leading in-house real estate legal team in Europe. Gimblett was the first to recruit into the Prologis legal team in Europe in 2005, but has since built the department to cover 12 countries across Europe with ten qualified lawyers and ten paralegals and assistants, consequently saving over €10m in external legal fees through internalisation and partnering with the business to manage the largest portfolio of industrial real estate in Europe comprising of 686 buildings or €17.8bn in value. ‘As a legal professional this has taught me how critical it is for risk management and good governance in a fast-moving and competitive industry to have legal professionals fully integrated and partnering with the business at every level. It has also taught me that there are very few limits to what legal work can be internalised by a strong and resilient in-house legal team of excellent professionals’, explains Gimblett. A formative learning curb for him has been his participation in the merger of equals between Prologis with AMB Properties in 2012, two of the largest players in the industrial and real estate sector merging to create the largest industrial and real estate company in the world. ‘From a legal perspective the merger was fascinating. It was a challenge to bring the legal structures of the two companies together and to harmonise legal procedure and risk management across 14 countries in Europe. The merger has been a huge success’, says Gimblett. ‘The experience taught me that there are more than one way to excellence and being open-minded to new procedures: methodology and personalities leads to greater strength and success’, adds Gimblett.