Hines announced that Sarah Hawkins has been promoted to chief executive officer of the U.S. East Region.
She is now responsible for all development, acquisition, asset management and operations activity in the region and is a member of the firm’s global Executive Committee.
Hawkins takes over the CEO position that was previously held by Chris Hughes before he transitioned to co-head of Investment Management, as well as the CEO, Capital Markets.
Hawkins joined Hines in the New York office as an Associate in 2011. Prior to her promotion, she served as the East Region’s chief operating officer, and before that, as a managing director in the New York regional office.
Prior to joining Hines, she was an associate at Fortress Investment Group and, before that, an analyst with the Blackstone Group.
She graduated from the University of Texas Phi Beta Kappa with a BA where she also received her BBA with High Honors.
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JLL announced that Christine Colley will join the firm’s New York office as an executive managing director.
Colley, previously a managing director at Cushman & Wakefield, has extensive experience in both the private and public sectors. During her career, Colley has leased more than four million square feet of space and has represented an array of clients including New York City Housing Authority, Atlice USA, Goldpoint Partners, Simons Foundation, Mitsui Fudosan and Alexandria Center.
Colley has received multiple awards throughout her career, including Commercial Property Executives’ 2021 Stars to Watch, Real Estate Weekly’s 2020 Real Estate Rising Star Award, Commercial Observer’s 2019 30 Under 30 and Cushman & Wakefield’s Tri-State Top Producer in 2017 and 2016.
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Cushman & Wakefield has welcomed a team led by industry veterans Deborah Van Der Heyden and Paul Ferraro, who will both serve as Executive Directors in brokerage.
Based out of the firm’s 1290 Avenue of the Americas office, Van Der Heyden and Ferraro will be joined by Matthew Livingston and Ian O’Mahony. The team will focus on tenant representation in New York City.
Deborah an Der Heyden is a 30-year industry veteran who has a wide breadth of experience across all property sectors across the US.
Previously, she spent 12 years at JLL and 15 years at Newmark as a commercial real estate advisor.
Van Der Heyden is a graduate of the College of Communications at Boston University and the master’s degree program at New York University’s Real Estate Institute.
Paul Ferraro has more than 15 years of experience in transaction management and brokerage. Previously, he was a corporate real estate advisor at JLL and USI Real Estate Brokerage Services.
He has a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Management from Villanova University.
Livingston has seven years of experience and joins the firm as a Director.
Previously at JLL, he graduated from Union College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and a minor in classics.
O’Mahony has six years of experience and joins Cushman & Wakefield as a senior brokerage specialist.
Previously at CBRE, he has a master’s degree in Real Estate from New York University.
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Rockefeller Group announced that Jennifer Stein has been promoted to Assistant Vice President & Director, Leasing, for Core Holdings. She was previously a director, and will continue to be based in the company’s Manhattan headquarters.
Stein is responsible for asset management, marketing and leasing of Rockefeller Group’s Midtown Manhattan office properties, primarily 1221 Avenue of the Americas and 1271 Avenue of the Americas, which total approximately five million square feet.
She works closely with commercial real estate brokerage professionals, partners and clients and was a key contributor to the lease-up of approximately two million square feet of office space at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, which recently completed a $600 million repositioning program.
In 2020, Stein was part of the team that secured Avra Estiatorio to approximately 17,000 s/f at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, which was the largest restaurant lease in Manhattan last year and recently recognized as the Real Estate Board of New York’s Most Ingenious Retail Deal of the Year.
Stein joined Rockefeller Group in 2008 and has held positions of increasing authority in Leasing, Property Management and Design & Construction. She has been involved in more than 3.5 million square feet of new leases within Rockefeller Group’s portfolio, excluding renewals.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and a master’s degree from New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate.
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Rubenstein Partners announced the appointment of Michael Happel and Joseph Zuber as the new leadership for its equity investing activities in New York and other major Northeast markets.
Michael Happel has over 30 years of experience investing in real estate, including acquisitions of office, retail, multifamily, industrial, and hotel properties, as well as acquisitions of real estate companies and real estate debt.
He is the former CEO of New York REIT, as well as CEO of New York City REIT. He has been responsible for over $3.5 billion of real estate acquisitions in New York City since 2009, when he formed and launched NYRT.
Previously, Happel worked at Morgan Stanley and held leadership roles at Westbrook Partners and Atticus Capital.
He received a B.A. in economics from Duke University in 1985 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1988.
Joe Zuber has over 30 years of real estate investment, development, asset management and restructuring experience.
For the past 10 years, Zuber was the managing principal of Black Walnut Capital LLC. Earlier in his career, he was president and chief operating officer of O’Connor Capital Partners. He also served as chief investment officer of The City Investment Fund, LP, an investment manager established by Fisher Brothers and Morgan Stanley. He was also previously an executive director of MSREF.
Zuber received an MBA from The Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia and a B.Arch. degree from Cornell University.
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Conifer Realty announced the appointment of Roger Snell as its new chief executive officer.
The announcement follows a recent investment in the company by Belveron Partners.
From 2010 to 2021, Snell was the chief investment officer of Veritas Investments. Prior to this he was the CEO of two public REITs. He presently serves on the board of Veritas Investments and a member of the investment committee, as well as CIM Income NAV, a public REIT.
Snell’s education includes an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
He is a member of the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA) and the Urban Land Institute (ULI).
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New York Law School (NYLS) Dean Anthony W. Crowell announced the appointment of Erin Felker Bond ’08 as the Associate Dean for Academic Planning and Career Development.
A 2008 graduate of NYLS, she is the first alumna to hold this critical position. She received her B.A. from the University of Virginia.
Most recently, Bond served as NYLS’s Assistant Dean of Academic Program Development, Director of the Office of Continuing Legal Education (CLE), and an adjunct professor with the School’s Center for Real Estate Studies (which she formerly served as Associate Director).
As a member of the School’s senior administration, she has provided leadership in implementing the NYLS Strategic Plan and engaged external partners for many programmatic initiatives. Her leadership has resulted in NYLS’s consistent recognition by the New York Law Journal as a top CLE provider in the State.
Since 2019, she has served on the Board of Directors of Services: for the UnderServed (S:US). She also served as 2014 President of the NYC real estate industry’s longest-running and most consistent supporter of women real estate professionals, CREW New York.
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Silverstein Properties announced that Yael Ron has joined the firm as Head of Global Hospitality & General Manager of Residential Properties.
A luxury hotel veteran with over 25 years of hospitality experience, Ron will be responsible for Silverstein’s hospitality and residential divisions.
She will also oversee Inspire, Silverstein’s customer experience program.
Ron most recently, she served as managing director of the Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York. Prior to that, she was the General Manager of The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco.
She spent nearly a decade with The Ritz-Carlton company working in Cleveland as director of sales and marketing, Herzliya in Israel and Macau, China.
Earlier, she worked at The Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv, following a decade with Hilton Hotels.
Ron holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Hotel Management from Technion Israel & Nova University, Florida, and an MBA from City University of New York, Baruch College. She is fluent in several languages.
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Silverstein Properties announced that Keith A. Cody has joined the company as Senior Vice President of Commercial Leasing.
Cody joins Silverstein Properties from Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT) where he was Vice President of Leasing for seven years. Prior to ESRT, he served as a Senior Vice President at CBRE.
During his 24-year tenure at ESRT and CBRE, Cody completed around 700 transactions in excess of 6.5 million RSF, and represented a wide range of tenants in multiple industries.
Cody received a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton.
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Savills announced that Jessica Jeffrey joined the firm as an associate director in New York.
Jeffrey brings more than 15 years of experience in real estate development, project and construction management, with expertise that spans the full capital project life cycle.
She has completed more than 1.5 million square feet of projects, including both ground-up developments and conversions in Manhattan and Brooklyn. She has also managed office building, retail and public plaza projects and led a team of subcontractors on Major League Baseball’s Nationals Ballpark in Washington, DC.
Before joining Savills, Jeffrey spent four years as a senior project executive with Anbau. She also spent 11 years working in the real estate development and construction industries as both a project manager and superintendent in multiple major metro areas.
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Savills has welcomed Ryan Walsh as a corporate managing director. Walsh has 20 years of real estate transaction and portfolio management experience, having worked with leading global brands, such as Willis Towers Watson, Morgan Stanley, Pfizer, and Bank of America.
Prior to joining the firm, Walsh worked at CBRE, where he served as a director of transaction management. He was responsible for developing enterprise portfolio strategy, opportunity assessments and transaction execution for global accounts. Before CBRE, he held positions at Cushman & Wakefield and JLL.
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Mortgage industry veteran Rick Bechtel has joined Compass as President of Mortgage. In his new role, Bechtel oversees Compass’ presence within the mortgage industry, including the recently announced joint venture with Guaranteed Rate, OriginPoint.
Prior to Compass, Bechtel was the executive vice president and head of U.S. Residential Lending at TD Bank. Additionally, he has held senior leadership roles with major mortgage industry leaders such as Chase, Wells Fargo, and CIBC.
Bechtel holds a BBA from the University of Wisconsin and MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
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Romer Debbas announced that Stacie Bryce Feldman has joined the firm as a partner with the Litigation Team.
Feldman focuses on real estate litigation related to rent regulatory issues, due diligence, J-51 class action suits, commercial lease disputes, commercial contract disputes, Article 78 Proceedings, and complex landlord/tenant issues.
Recently, Feldman provided comments on proposed legislation in the landlord tenant field pertaining to the impacts of COVID-19 prior to its enactment.
A member of the bar of the state of New York and admitted to practice before the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts, Feldman received a Juris Doctorate degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
She completed her undergraduate degree at the State University of New York at Stonybrook where she was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
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Eastern Union has named Victoria Smith senior data specialist in the company’s newly launched Commission Data Broker Division.
Smith, who joined the firm earlier this year as a summer intern, will play a central role in the management and training of Commission Data Brokers (CDB), a new professional job category introduced to the industry by Eastern Union.
Smith, who will be based in Jacksonville, FL, previously served as a senior customer service advocate in the Jacksonville office of OptumRx, a pharmacy and healthcare services company.
She holds a bachelor of science degree in data management and data analytics from Western Governors University in Salt Lake City. She also earned an associate of science degree in computer science from Gateway Community College in New Haven.
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Blank Rome LLP announced that Matthew J. Crawford has joined the firm’s New York office as an associate in the Real Estate group,.
Crawford joins Blank Rome from Meister Seelig & Fein where he worked in their Real Estate and Hospitality groups.
He concentrates his practice on commercial leasing, representing both landlords and tenants.
Crawford is admitted to practice in New York, Connecticut, Florida, and New Jersey.
He earned his J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law and his B.A. Political Science and Geography, magna cum laude, from Villanova University.
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The Praedium Group announced the addition of three new hires. Molly Steckler joined the client development team as an associate, JK Lee joined the investment team as an analyst, and Allyson Lisser joined the portfolio management team as an analyst.
Molly Steckler is an associate on the marketing and client development team. She is also a member of the ESG Committee. Previously, she was a relationship manager in the Multifamily Agency Finance group at Capital One, N.A.
Steckler received a B.A. in Public Policy with a concentration in Environmental Policy from Vanderbilt University.
JK Lee is an analyst on the investment team. He previously worked in the Agency Loan group at Greystone & Co.
Lee received a B.A. in Financial Economics from Columbia University.
Allyson Lisser is an analyst on the portfolio management team. Prior to joining Praedium, Lisser was a real estate valuation associate at KPMG LLLP and holds her BBA in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Madison International Realty has appointed Anisa Keith as director of Equity Capital Markets.
Keith will report to Michael Chen, managing director and Head of Capital Markets who oversees ECM/investor relations.
Prior to joining Madison, Keith was Head of Investor Relations at Basis Capital Investment Group. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and earned an MBA from Columbia University.
