Jabril Battle had plenty of sales experience, but nothing in commercial real estate. He was surprised that background made him highly desirable among big property brokerages these days. After working more than 10 years in various sales jobs, he was intrigued when a recruiter for JLL contacted him about becoming a commercial property broker, a position he knew little about but had heard those who succeeded could earn a good living. He started at JLL in mid-December, four days after getting his real estate license. Battle, who had been selling supply chain and retail planning software and developing sales plans for fashion retailers, decided to take the leap and enter the competitive world of commercial real estate. He said he figured his sales acumen and ability to bring in business, combined with his interpersonal skills, would serve him well. "Some people don't like picking up the phone, and I can definitely tell the foundation of commercial real estate is picking up the phone and speaking to people," Battle said in an interview. "So I think it's going to help me a lot. I'm very used to cold calling, rejection and handling the rejection itself, which is its own beast."

Battle, who was born in Los Angeles and grew up in San Diego, said the potential to earn good pay through commissions and to be a part of developments that can change city skylines played a sizable role in Battle's decision to move into commercial real estate. Battle wasn't too familiar with the industry before considering the JLL job but said he had heard positive things from people he knew. "Every time when I was speaking with someone and they had like a cousin or a friend who was in commercial real estate, it was always, 'He's highly successful,' and 'It's a very tough business,' but the ceiling is very high in terms of what you can achieve not only financially, but in your community," Battle said. He's currently working in the office and industrial sectors and looking for tenants in need of help with space needs.

Office landlord representative Emily Richardson has returned to Colliers, where she worked from 2016-2020. Upon her return, Richardson was appointed as a vice president on the Atlanta office's landlord representative team. In her new role, she will focus on providing leasing, marketing and advisory services to office landlords. Before she joined Colliers the first time, Richardson served as vice president of business development at Office Images and she spent three-plus years at Turner Construction, where she managed construction schedules, budgets, and client-architect relationships for projects with an aggregate value of more than $10 million. Her background in commercial construction and previous work at Colliers will help the firm as it works to grow its landlord representation business, Atlanta market leader Nathan Knowles said.

Marcus & Millichap said its Institutional Property Advisors, or IPA business, has hired multifamily investment sales brokers Bob Dean, a 30-year industry veteran, and Jonathan Greenberg from CBRE in Washington, D.C. Dean and Greenberg joined IPA as senior managing directors. Dean, who spent the past eight years at CBRE, focuses on the execution of institutional property sales in the mid-Atlantic region. Before he joined CBRE, Dean spent 20 years as a senior executive with GE Capital Real Estate. Greenberg has focused on multifamily investment property sales in the region since 2001. Since 2016, Dean and Greenberg have teamed up to complete multifamily transactions with an aggregate value of $26 billion. John Sebree, senior vice president and director of the multifamily division at Marcus & Millichap and IPA, said in a statement that the addition of Dean and Greenberg "complements our recent expansions in Nashville, San Diego and Dallas, and reinforces our ongoing commitment to the strategic growth of IPA throughout North America."

Newmark has recruited Suzanne Lee, an office broker who works on occupier and investment services for multimarket accounts in the technology, financial services and nonprofit sectors, to its West Los Angeles operation. Lee spent the past nearly 12 years at Cushman & Wakefield, where she was an executive director who focused on tenant representation and investment sales. She also has worked at Transwestern, CBRE and Colliers. Lee specializes in structuring and negotiating complex office transactions, particularly for corporate headquarters evaluations, Newmark said. Most recently, Lee led negotiations on significant headquarters assignments for CTBC Bank, one of the largest privately owned banks in Taiwan that has its U.S. offices at 801 Figueroa in Los Angeles, and ServiceTitan, a software company focused on the contracting business. Elizabeth Hart, Newmark's president of leasing for North America, said in a statement that Lee will play an important role "as we anticipate increasing demand across office-using industries."

Industrial real estate firm Panattoni Development Co. has added Nevada to the territory overseen by Tim Schaedler, the firm's Northern California region partner. The opportunity for Schaedler to get an expanded role emerged when Doug Roberts, who had been serving as the company's Nevada partner, took on the role of president of Panattoni's national development group and became a member of the company’s investment committee. Schaedler joined Panattoni in 2004. During his tenure, he has managed more than $1.5 billion of speculative and build-to-suit projects. In his larger role, his responsibilities will include leading a team across three offices and overseeing investment underwriting, due diligence, financing, development entitlements, architectural design, construction budgets and lease negotiations, Panattoni said. Nevada is an important region to Panatton , Schaedler said. "We have capacity for an additional 7 million square feet, so we are hitting the ground running," he said in a statement.

Atlas Realty Group Partners, or ARG, has launched a finance division that will focus on middle market multifamily and commercial property transactions throughout New York City's five boroughs. The division, called ARG Capital, will be led by Jeff Yoffe. He brings more than two decades of experience to the role. Before joining ARG, Yoffe served as principal of GF Financial, a New Jersey-based finance company. During his career, Yoffe has closed several billion dollars in commercial real estate transactions throughout the U.S. and Europe. He has worked in deal in several property types including multifamily, office, industrial, retail and hospitality. “I’m a firm believer that despite market headwinds, there’s tremendous opportunity today” for companies that find creative ways to increase the value of their investments, Yoffe said in a statement. ARG was founded by principals Shlomo Antebi, Yosef Katz and Erik Yankelovich. Combined the trio has completed more than $4 billion of commercial property deals.

Lee & Associates South Florida has hired Luisa Pena, who has more than 15 years or commercial real estate experience, as a principal. Pena is based in Miami and specializes in multifamily investment sales, Lee & Associates said. Prior to joining the brokerage, she served as an associate at Marcus & Millichap. At Marcus & Millichap Pena handled the acquisition and disposition of multifamily properties across Miami-Dade and Broward counties, She also was a member of the brokerage's national housing group.

Lee & Associates South Florida President Matthew Rotolante said Pena is a key addition to the team and will help the brokerage expand its business in the multifamily sector. She currently is marketing for sale a fully occupied multifamily property in Coconut Grove in Miami.