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Index / 00
The brief

Workplace,
de-consulted.

I'm Daaf Serné. I ran global workplace at Miro and ServiceNow through some of the steepest growth curves in tech. PlaceWorks is what I do next — operator-grade advisory for leaders who'd rather skip the deck-ware.

See the work
201

Hyper-growth scale-ups led

Miro · ServiceNow

30+02

Countries, one playbook

EMEA · APAC · AMER

~3.5M03

Sqft of workplace shaped

From HQs to global hubs

Built with / Featured in →
Miro ✦ServiceNow ✦Facto Magazine ✦Colliers ✦Program ✦WerkCast ✦Miro ✦ServiceNow ✦Facto Magazine ✦Colliers ✦Program ✦WerkCast ✦Miro ✦ServiceNow ✦Facto Magazine ✦Colliers ✦Program ✦WerkCast ✦

Index / 01
Track record

Receipts, not
retainer talk.

01

Client
Miro

When
2021 — 2024

Role
Global Head of Workplace

From a single Amsterdam HQ to a distributed global footprint — without losing the room.

From a single Amsterdam HQ to a distributed global footprint — without losing the room.

Hyper-growth doesn't wait for a real-estate strategy to catch up. We rebuilt the operating model around hybrid-by-default: scalable hub design, asynchronous workflows, and a portfolio that flexed with headcount instead of fighting it. At the heart of it sat our 'Learning Lab' strategy — treating each office as a live experiment, measuring what actually drove better outcomes for both employees and the business, and rolling the wins back into the global playbook.

12+
Countries supported
~250k
Sqft reshaped
1
Unified playbook

Artifact / Field study

The Learning Lab strategy, made public — what we measured, what we learned, what changed.

Open full study ↗

02

Client
ServiceNow

When
2013 — 2022

Role
Sr. Director, Global Real Estate & Sustainability

Hyper-scaling a real-estate footprint across three regions — without the portfolio outrunning the business.

Hyper-scaling a real-estate footprint across three regions — without the portfolio outrunning the business.

Joined as the EMEA facilities lead and grew with the company from a regional office into a global enterprise. Built the Corporate Real Estate function from scratch, ran 150+ transactions across AMER, EMEA and APAC, and stood up the sustainability practice that took ServiceNow from no baseline to a Board-approved Net Zero commitment and SBTi targets.

$122M
Global RE expense controlled
150+
Transactions in 3 years
Net Zero
From baseline to Board approval

Index / 02
Operating principles

Six rules.
No filler.

P/01

Human-centric by design.

The workplace exists for the people in it — not the other way around. Every decision starts with how humans actually work, gather, focus, and recover. Get that right and the rest follows.

P/02

Real estate is a product.

Square meters are an interface. We design them like one — with users, jobs-to-be-done, and a roadmap that ships.

P/03

Data earns its place.

Sensors and AI are tools, not décor. If a metric doesn't change a decision in the next quarter, it doesn't make the dashboard.

P/04

Hybrid is a verb.

It's an operating model, not a seating chart. Policy, technology, and space have to argue with each other until they agree.

P/05

Sustainability is an outcome.

ESG goals don't survive contact with a procurement cycle unless they're wired into design intent from day one. We wire them in.

P/06

Less, but louder.

Fewer offices, fewer slides, fewer pilots. More clarity on what the workplace is actually for, and the conviction to defend it.

Index / 03
Press & POV

In print,
on the record.

Index / 04
The founder

One operator.
No bench, no junior team.

Daaf Serné, founder of PlaceWorks Advisory

Name

Daaf Serné

Designations

MCR · SLCR

Based

Amsterdam, NL

Working in

EN · NL

"I spent ~2 decades running workplace inside companies that were doubling every year. The advisory I needed back then didn't exist. So I built it."

Former Global Head of Workplace at Miro and ServiceNow. Master of Corporate Real Estate (MCR) and Senior Leader of Corporate Real Estate (SLCR).

PlaceWorks engagements stay deliberately small: one senior operator, in the room, accountable end-to-end. No deck factory, no shadow team. If the work needs more hands, I'll tell you — and tell you who.

LinkedIn ↗