After Local C&W Shakeup, Roberta Liss Looks Ahead

Cushman & Wakefield is used to constant change. Since its massive merger with DTZ last year, the real estate services company has taken its place alongside JLL and CBRE as one of the country's big three firms.

Now, its DC office leadership is changing rapidly as three top brokers, including executive director Brian Tucker, departed for JLL, and the company brought Peter Carroccio into the newly created role of executive managing director of brokerage for the DC region. 

Peter comes from CBRE, where he was senior managing director. Regional managing principal Roberta Liss says Peter's hiring is unrelated to the departures, and that the majority of people in the office have integrated positively into the post-merger company.

"Any time there’s a merger, there’s a great integration between all of your best people and the people who recognized the great value of our platform...those are people that get the most excited and collect themselves with energy," Roberta, shown with Peter above, tells Bisnow. "Others do things differently."

Roberta wouldn't comment on the recent departures specifically, but a Cushman & Wakefield spokesperson says the company is "actively recruiting and we're proud of the talent we have."

“This is an industry that sees constant churn as companies look for talent and brokers look for opportunities," the spokesperson said. 

Peter, who has known Roberta for 25 years, says they have "identical" strategies in mind for the firm's growth, and he is excited to begin recruiting some of the area's top talent.

"Our existing broker culture is phenomenal, we want to recruit and add to that," Peter, second from left with Tom McHugh, Anne Rosenau and Brian McVay, says. "We’re going to recruit smart, hard-working, linear and analytic thinkers. We've got some great brokerage leaders, they are truly champions, and we want to continue working with these champions to help us grow our brokerage teams."  

Roberta praised Peter as an "honorable, trustworthy, collaborative professional," and says she is confident he will put together a strong team. 

"His leadership is going to be utilized in a way in this merged organization where he can collect all of the best professionals regardless of where they focus," Roberta says. "Whether they're a tenant rep broker, a landlord broker, capital markets, we all serve our clients in unique ways and Peter is going to strategically put this together to drive distinctive advantages."

C&W's DC office has already celebrated several big victories this year and has more on the horizon, Roberta says. In April, the firm brokered the sale of WashREIT's Maryland portfolio to Brookfield Properties, which then retained C&W to manage the assets, which Roberta called a "phenomenal two-touch win." 

Last week, Cushman & Wakefield closed on a major deal, Roberta says, acquiring a national data center portfolio that it cannot disclose the name of yet. In the DC area, she says they are very close to finalizing several transactions larger than 100k SF.   

Roberta says she has an "extremely positive" outlook on the DC market and Cushman & Wakefield's position in it.

"We have a balanced and strong business in every service line," she says. "If you look at overall volume, we know it's down compared to previous years, but from a Cushman perspective, even though volume's lower, our market share is growing, we're transacting different deals in different locations."

Peter agreed, saying his short-term and long-term view of the DC market is positive.

"I feel strong about where we’re going as a region," Peter says, "if you look at the growth of retail, the expansion of the city and all the cranes you see, all of the business that continues to thrive."