Leah Ong is Head of Property at InfraBuild, where she leads the strategy and management of a national industrial property portfolio exceeding 3 million square metres and more than $100 million in annual rental commitments.
With more than 20 years’ experience across corporate real estate, industrial property, leasing, capital projects and portfolio optimisation, Leah brings an occupier-side perspective to the evolving role of industrial real estate. Having worked across both advisory and corporate environments, she understands the challenge of aligning property decisions with broader business objectives.
Leah works closely with operational and executive teams to ensure property supports business performance, resilience and future growth. Her focus extends beyond individual assets to the optimisation of the broader property network, ensuring sites remain fit-for-purpose in an environment shaped by changing supply chains, technology, energy requirements and workforce expectations.
Leah is particularly interested in how industrial property can move beyond being viewed as a cost of doing business to becoming a strategic enabler of operational success and competitive advantage.
Is industrial property still being treated as a cost centre? Industrial property has traditionally been managed primarily through a cost and occupancy lens. Is that mindset now outdated?
Property will always be a significant cost for an industrial business, but treating it purely as a cost centre risks missing its strategic value.
The right property decisions can improve productivity, reduce operational risk, support growth and create competitive advantage. At InfraBuild, we increasingly think about property as part of the operating platform of the business. Every site influences productivity, supply chain efficiency, employee experience, energy consumption and future growth potential.
That changes the questions we ask. Rather than simply asking whether we have the right building, we need to understand whether our broader property portfolio is enabling the business to achieve its strategic objectives.
With a national industrial portfolio, that also means looking beyond individual assets and considering the network as a whole. Sometimes the greatest value comes from changing the shape of the portfolio rather than simply improving an individual building.
“Property is a cost, but the way you manage it can create value.”
What does a high-performing industrial asset actually look like? From an occupier’s perspective, what makes an industrial property genuinely high-performing — and how should we measure it?
The definition of a high-performing asset is evolving.
Traditional property metrics remain important, but they only tell part of the story. For occupiers, a property’s true value lies in how effectively it supports business outcomes.
A property can be technically high-performing from a property perspective and still be the wrong asset for the business.
A genuinely high-performing industrial asset enables safe operations, supports workforce productivity, provides flexibility for changing business requirements and allows efficient movement of people, products and materials. Increasingly, access to power, infrastructure and technology capability are also becoming critical differentiators.
As property leaders, we need to move away from assessing assets solely through a property lens and instead evaluate them through a business performance lens.
The most successful industrial portfolios are those that bring together operational efficiency, resilience, flexibility and long-term value creation — while ensuring capital is being invested where it creates the greatest benefit for the business.
“The best property decisions are business decisions made through a property lens.”
What will the industrial portfolio of the future look like? As manufacturing, energy, technology and supply chains continue to evolve, what will distinguish the industrial portfolios that succeed over the next decade?
I believe flexibility and optionality will become some of the most valuable characteristics of industrial property.
The pace of change across manufacturing, automation, electrification and supply chains means that industrial assets need to accommodate requirements we may not fully understand today.
Businesses will increasingly need properties that can adapt to changing operational models, different power demands, new technologies and evolving workforce expectations. Location will remain critical, but the ability to reconfigure, expand and future-proof assets will become equally important.
We shouldn’t just ask whether a property is fit for today’s purpose. We should ask how much optionality it gives the business for tomorrow.
In the past, industrial property may have been assessed based on its suitability for a specific use. Going forward, I think the question will be how effectively that asset can support multiple future scenarios.
The portfolios that perform best will be those that provide optionality and resilience, allowing businesses to respond confidently to changing market conditions.
“The most valuable industrial portfolio won’t necessarily be the newest. It will be the one that gives the business the greatest flexibility to adapt and grow.”
Leah Ong will chair Day Two of the Industrial Real Estate Summit, 15–16 September 2026 in Sydney, bringing together occupiers, landlords and property leaders to explore the operational themes, challenges and opportunities that determine how industrial assets perform in the real world.
Download the Agenda to view the two-day program.
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