EDGE Insider: The Art of Giving a Building Its Second Life with Deborah Rajwich

For Deborah, the most important phase of a building's life begins after construction ends. As Asset Management activities strengthen within Edge, she reflects on long-term stewardship, thinking out of the box, and why the future of real estate is becoming increasingly human.

Beyond Development

While real estate development often captures the spotlight, with new projects generating attention long before they are completed, Deborah's focus begins once the excitement of delivery fades. For her, the true test of a building is not how it performs on opening day, but how it continues to perform ten, twenty or thirty years later.

Falling in love with a building is easy. Keeping it performing financially, operationally and environmentally over thirty years is the hard part.

The industry's definition of success is changing. Delivering a building is no longer the finish line. Increasingly, what matters is how it performs over its lifetime.

Frankfurt Posthof, Frankfurt

How It Started

Deborah's path into real estate was anything but planned. Originally from a suburb outside Munich, she studied business and engineering before specialising in finance. Her career began in insurance and business development, but she always found herself drawn to buildings. Looking back, she laughs that she often judged potential employers by their offices. Whether it was a striking skyscraper or a thoughtfully designed workplace, the built environment always caught her attention.

EDGE East Side, Berlin (LaurianGhinitoiu)

That fascination eventually led her into asset management, a discipline that combines strategic thinking, financial performance and long-term stewardship. Unlike real estate development, which operates on defined project timelines, asset management requires a much broader horizon. It demands an understanding of how buildings evolve, how people use them and how they can continue creating value long after the excitement of a delivery. For Deborah, that complexity is precisely what makes the role so rewarding.

Building a New Function at Edge

When Deborah joined Edge, she entered at a particularly interesting moment. Asset Management was still establishing itself as a new function within the German business unit of the company. Edge had built a reputation through the development of innovative, sustainable and modern workplaces, but managing assets represented a different kind of challenge. Rather than creating buildings, the focus was on ensuring those buildings continued to thrive.

The opportunity appealed to Deborah because it involved building something new. While many professionals step into established departments with clearly defined structures and processes, the German Asset Management team found itself shaping both its role and its identity. They were not only responsible for managing assets; they were helping define what Asset Management would become within Edge.

That process has required a balance between structure and flexibility. Deborah often returns to a phrase that has become something of a personal philosophy:

The rules should be the frame, not the cage.

Growing up in Germany, she learned the value of rules and process. But for her, they should provide direction rather than define the limits of what is possible. At Edge, she has found a culture that keeps the frame while continually exploring what can happen within it. Sometimes the answer is no, but curiosity comes first.

This spirit of ownership was one of the first things she noticed after joining. Responsibility is distributed differently than in many traditional organisations. Ideas can come from anywhere. Hierarchies are relatively flat. Employees are encouraged to contribute beyond the confines of their job descriptions. For Deborah, this environment has been both exciting and demanding. It requires individuals to trust their own judgment, take initiative and accept that experimentation inevitably involves uncertainty.

The Human Side of Asset Management

Although asset management is often perceived as a technical discipline, Deborah believes its future is becoming increasingly human. Financial performance remains important, but the factors that drive long-term success are often far less tangible. Tenant satisfaction, experience, communication and trust play a growing role in determining whether a building remains competitive.

Much of Deborah's day is spent in conversation. She speaks regularly with tenants, investors, colleagues and service providers, gathering information that rarely appears in formal reports. Understanding how people experience a building can be just as valuable as understanding its financial performance. In many cases, the two are closely connected.

One example she shares is deceptively simple. Sometimes the source of tenant frustration is something as small as a broken lightbulb in a building entrance. The issue itself is minor, but the perception it creates can have much broader implications. If problems remain unresolved, occupants begin to feel ignored. Small frustrations accumulate. Over time, these experiences shape how people feel about a building and, ultimately, whether they want to remain there.

For this reason, Deborah places great importance on being present in the assets she manages. Reports and dashboards provide useful information, but they rarely tell the whole story. Walking through a building, observing how people use spaces and speaking directly with tenants often reveals insights that data alone cannot provide. The most effective asset managers are not simply analysing performance metrics; they are paying attention to the everyday experiences that influence those metrics in the first place.

This shift reflects broader changes within the office market. Workplaces are increasingly evaluated through the lens of experience. Organisations want environments that support productivity, wellbeing and collaboration. Employees expect more from the places where they spend their time. In a world where so much work can happen anywhere, the destination has to earn the commute. As a result, asset management has begun to overlap with disciplines such as hospitality, customer experience and community building. Success is no longer defined solely by occupancy rates or rental income. It is also determined by how people feel when they walk through the door.

Why Thinking Out of the Box Matters

One of the most striking aspects of Deborah's approach is her willingness to experiment. In a sector often associated with caution and predictability, she believes that curiosity and initiative are becoming increasingly important. Markets are changing too quickly for organisations to rely exclusively on established playbooks. Sometimes the most valuable insights emerge from trying something unexpected.

She recalls a vacant commercial space in Berlin that had attracted limited attention through conventional leasing efforts. Rather than waiting for circumstances to change, the team decided to take a different approach. They created flyers and distributed them throughout the surrounding neighbourhood. It was a surprisingly analogue strategy in an industry that often prioritises digital solutions, yet it generated meaningful engagement and renewed interest in the space.

The lesson was not necessarily about the flyers themselves. It was about action. The willingness to test an idea, gather feedback and learn from the outcome. For Deborah, innovation often begins with simply trying something that others might overlook.

The same mindset can be seen in a recent artistic collaboration involving one of the buildings under the team's management. What started as a conversation about an empty facade evolved into a project with a well-known street artist, transforming part of the building into large-scale public artwork. The initiative was not driven by a leasing target or operational requirement. Instead, it emerged from a desire to strengthen the building's connection to its surroundings and contribute something meaningful to the local environment.

The role is about being proactive. Rather than waiting for problems to emerge, she prefers to build systems that prevent them from happening in the first place. For her, good asset management is not simply about responding well. It is about shaping conditions before they require a response.

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape professional work, Deborah believes the real opportunity lies in deciding where human attention is most valuable. Routine work, whether research, reporting or repetitive analysis, should increasingly be handled by technology. She has already begun building systems that automate tasks such as contract analysis and fee calculations, freeing up time for the work that cannot be delegated.

RED City West, Berlin (Iwo Hoffmann)

Real estate is one of the last industries still doing by hand what should be automated.I want my judgement to go into the decisions, not the copy-paste. Rather than replacing people, AI creates more space for creativity, critical thinking and stronger relationships.

Looking ahead, Deborah hopes Asset Management at Edge will continue to challenge conventional assumptions about what the discipline can be. Her ambition is not simply to manage assets effectively, but to approach them with genuine ownership. To think like an investor. To understand the needs of tenants. To remain curious. And above all, to ensure that buildings continue to matter long after they have been completed.