About

CBRE Global Investors is one of the world’s largest real estate investment management firms with approximately $88.4bn in assets under management globally. As the company’s general counsel for Spain and Portugal and secretary to the board of directors for the last three years, María Segimón is a respected and high profile figure in the Spanish legal market with an impressive career spanning international law firms and in-house roles. Examples include the London and Madrid offices of Clifford Chance, DLA Piper and the market-leading Spanish construction company Ferrovial. Joining CBRE in 2012 amid the Spanish economic crisis, which had a devastating impact on the real estate market, Segimón has supported the company through the most difficult of times. ‘The real estate market collapsed in 2007 and did not recover until 2013. During this crisis we could not rotate any of the assets under management as there was no demand, and suddenly, in 12 months the market changed 180 degrees and we had to face 22 M&A transactions in 2014 alone, with the same limited team that the company had had during the crisis years’ she says. Throughout her time in this role, Segimón has worked hard to build an understanding of what legal does and to improve cross-functional communication. Three years after assuming her role, she has managed to convince the business team members to regard the legal team as a partner, which has increased the value that the legal function can bring to the company. ‘The CEO has appointed me as member of the executive committee and he has instructed each company committee (risk, operations and transactions) to have one member of the legal team always present. This was not the case three years ago and we could not have delivered the work expected from the legal team back in 2014 if we had not been present in all these committees’.