Building the Strategic Operating System for a New-Age Real Estate & Advisory Platform
Cushman & Wakefield has appointed Samanta Bahl as Senior Director – Strategy & Operations for India & South East Asia, signaling a sharp focus on performance, platform thinking, and operating-model excellence as the firm scales across one of the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate markets.
As real estate advisory firms evolve from brokerage-led models into data-driven, capital-aligned platforms, Cushman & Wakefield is betting on a leader who blends financial strategy, startup execution, private equity rigor, and corporate transformation.
With a career spanning global investment banking, private equity, corporate strategy, and venture-building, Samanta brings exactly the hybrid leadership profile modern professional-services firms now need.
A Strategy Leader Built for Platforms, Not Silos
Samanta is not a traditional real-estate operator. Her career has been shaped at the intersection of:
- Capital markets
- Operating strategy
- Founder-led innovation
- Enterprise performance management
Before returning to Cushman & Wakefield in this senior regional role, she built one of India’s most meaningful women-focused health platforms as Founder of Nirvi for Women–a bootstrapped wellness-tech company serving over 4,000 mothers across India in the WHO-defined first 1,000 days of maternal and child development.
This dual identity–corporate strategist + zero-to-one founder–is rare and powerful.
From CEO’s Office to Regional Strategy Nerve Center
Samanta’s relationship with Cushman & Wakefield goes deep.
Earlier in her career, she served in the CEO’s Office in India, running Strategy, FP&A, performance management, and leadership reporting for the country’s operations.
She worked directly with:
- The CEO
- CFO
- CHRO
- Marketing & Research heads
on:
- Business health metrics
- Regional C-suite reporting
- CRM (Salesforce) governance
- Incentive & reward design
- Annual operating plans
- Strategic communication and investor-grade decks
In large professional-services firms, this role is the nerve center–where strategy, execution, and accountability come together.
Now, as Senior Director – Strategy & Operations for India & SEA, Samanta returns with a much broader global and entrepreneurial lens.
Private Equity, Investment Banking & Capital Fluency
Before corporate leadership, Samanta built her foundation in global finance and investing:
At Sovereign Capital (London), she worked on:
- Deal screening & due diligence
- Healthcare and offshore services platforms
- A GBP 30M education sector transaction
At Nomura (Singapore), she supported:
- Cross-border REIT acquisitions
- Sovereign debt roadshows
- Institutional investor coverage
At FIRE Capital, she covered:
- Real estate and infrastructure investments
- Mixed-use developments in Tier-II and Tier-III cities
- Hospitality and warehousing platforms
This capital-markets DNA is invaluable in a real-estate advisory firm where investors, developers, and global funds drive the agenda.
AI, Tech Platforms & Modern Advisory at Kelp
Most recently, Samanta served as Head of Pre-Sales & Strategy at Kelp, an AI-powered decision engine for Private Equity and M&A advisory.
There she worked on:
- Translating investor pain points into product solutions
- Building sales funnels and go-to-market models
- Institutionalizing data into front-office decision-making
This experience directly connects to Cushman & Wakefield’s future–where data, technology, and advisory increasingly define differentiation.
What Her Appointment Means for Cushman & Wakefield
Cushman & Wakefield is no longer just a brokerage–it is becoming a regional real-estate platform serving:
- Global capital
- Corporate occupiers
- Developers
- Private equity and sovereign funds
Samanta Bahl’s role puts her at the center of this evolution.
She is positioned to:
- Build performance management systems across India & SEA
- Align strategy, finance, sales, and operations
- Drive data-driven decision-making
- Institutionalize growth and accountability
- Support capital-market-grade reporting and governance
In short, she will help turn regional scale into a professionally run platform.
CXO Gateway Reflection
At CXO Gateway, we see Samanta Bahl’s appointment as a powerful signal of where real estate advisory is headed.
This is not about running offices.
This is about running a strategy and performance engine across markets.
Samanta represents a new class of leaders–those who can move seamlessly between private equity logic, startup execution, and enterprise governance.
For Cushman & Wakefield in India & South East Asia, this hire doesn’t just strengthen leadership–it builds the operating system for the next decade of growth.