Bruce MacAffer
SVP & Head of Group Real Estate Americas
WPP

Bruce MacAffer has been a corporate real estate professional for almost 30 years. Currently he is Senior Vice President of Group Real Estate, Americas over seeing real estate strategy and portfolio management for WPP, a global leader in marketing services, on their 8 million square foot regional real estate portfolio. Bruce has developed a series of award-winning corporate headquarters projects for WPP’s global brands and transacted over 7 million square feet with $5 billion in aggregate value. In 2013 Bruce leased and led development of what became 690,000 SF of GroupM offices anchoring the development of 3 World Trade Center. The leading-edge project won IFMA and Corenet awards for innovation and excellence in 2016, 2018 & 2019. In 2011 he led Young & Rubicam’s move to 3 Columbus Circle using 1031 forward and reverse exchanges into 375,000 SF HQ lease and condominium, a transaction further leveraged into a sale leaseback generating over $200m cash in 2019. Earlier headquarters’ relocation projects, Grey Advertising to Madison Square and Ogilvy & Mather to the Far West side, garnered many awards including REBNY’s “Deal of the Year” awards in 2007 and 2008. In addition, Bruce has led the leasing and development of dozens of campus colocation projects for WPP across the Americas.

Most recently Bruce is championing new ways of working at WPP and leading an aggressive portfolio restructuring, dramatically reducing real estate costs to respond to the COVID pandemic and its effects on the workplace.

Before his 18 years at WPP, Bruce managed international real estate for Citigroup, regionalizing real estate operations and developing projects and managing transactions across Asia and Latin America.

Bruce graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts, Magna cum Laude in Architecture. He earned his MBA from Columbia University where he also studied Urban Planning. For 8 years, Bruce was a member Manhattan Community Board 4, as well as a board member of the Times Square Alliance.