JLL makes about-face on harassment investigation
Eighteen years, that’s how long real estate giant JLL keeps topping an authoritative list of the most ethical companies on the planet. Eighteen years straight, according to the ranking body Ethisphere.
In fact, so proud and even expectant of this recognition is JLL that it posts an annual press release announcing the news to its investors, always with the same quote from global executive Alan Tse.
“Ethics is a key pillar of our culture and trust,” Tse said in March, when JLL made it up there for the 18th time.
Actually, that was new, the key pillar bit, a celebratory tweak from Tse’s usual line: “Ethics is at the heart of everything we do,” which he said in 2024 and again in 2023, having recycled it earlier from 2022 and used it (definitely not for the first time) the year before that and the year before that.
These ethical foundations are clearly holding up the JLL headquarters in Chicago, but among the loose units of the Australian outpost, led by CEO Dan Kernaghan, all is not so sturdy, particularly inside the Victorian branch run out of Collins Street, Melbourne.
Kernaghan’s been in a bind these last few weeks over a Victorian team leader named James Jorgensen, a commercial agent whom he lured to JLL in 2023 from rival firm CBRE. Lured with money, of course. Kernaghan wanted Jorgensen so badly that he signed him up with a bonus payment of $2.8m.
Two months ago, Jorgensen became the subject of serious allegations levelled by a female JLL executive with whom he’d been, for a time, in a relationship.
The complaint went to the national head of HR, Julie Skinner, with reams of text messages sent between Jorgensen and the executive forming much of the evidence examined by the inquiry that followed.
Global leaders in ethical best practice ought to know that sensitive investigations are best managed externally and not, as JLL opted for, by the in-house HR department.
Engaging an arms-length third-party ensures credibility of the result and procedural fairness. An HR employee, wired into the same office-gossip network, provides no assurance of either. You have to wonder what Ethisphere’s judging panel will make of that call in 2026.
Kernaghan took a very close interest in this investigation, and rightfully so. He’s everywhere on the internet talking about workplace equality and safe, inclusive spaces. He sits on the Champions of Change Coalition, a body whose “primary objective” is increasing the number of “women in senior leadership positions across the property industry”.
These are subjects Kernaghan professes to care very deeply about.
Which is why it’s instructive that he backed Jorgensen to be reinstated once the inquiry had concluded, albeit with the imposition of sanctions and a first-and-final warning, the administrative equivalents of getting tickled up by a feather duster.
Jorgensen, the inquiry found, had failed as a leader, and for this he was due to be dumped from a position he held on the Victorian leadership team.
The list of more serious allegations did not appear to be substantiated, or so we surmise based on Kernaghan’s call to reinstate Jorgensen. The report itself is privileged.
Kernaghan’s decision remained in place, but only until Friday, by which time JLL’s global leadership learned of this matter, became involved, and resulted in Kernaghan, mysteriously, reversing-course on Jorgensen and terminating his employment entirely, which the company confirmed to us in a statement on Monday.
“We are committed to providing a safe, respectful, and inclusive workplace for all employees. As this is a confidential employment matter, we will not be commenting further,” JLL said.
There’s no alternative explanation for this sudden and unaccountable change of heart. Quite obviously Kernaghan was overruled, and just as obvious is that the executives in Chicago, perhaps even global CEO Christian Ulbrich, hold their own view on either the optics of this matter, the quality of the investigation, the results, or all three. And perhaps on Kernaghan’s stewardship of it, as well.
