Cresa is seeking a CEO to take the reins from Tod Lickerman within the next two years and President Greg Schementi is leaving as the commercial real estate brokerage makes long-term succession plans.
As part of a leadership shakeup, Vice Chairman Tom Birnbach is taking over as the firm's interim president, the Chicago-based firm confirmed to CoStar News.
The firm's executive committee, which includes Lickerman, Birnbach and Chairman Gary Gregg, is now seeking a CEO to take over within the next two years, if not sooner, Lickerman said Monday.
In an interview with CoStar News, Lickerman said the organizational changes are part of a long-term growth and succession plan.
Lickerman said he plans to remain in an advisory role with Cresa after a successor is hired as CEO.
"For CEO, we do succession planning, and we're underway with that right now," Lickerman said. "In any case, I will always be part of the firm. I have a big stake in the company. I will always do [mergers and acquisitions] and advisory and help them recruiting, and so I'm not going anywhere, but we're looking at the CEO position.
"We're doing a very structured, thoughtful review to say, ‘Who's the right leader?’ and we did this [with the chief financial officer]. We hired a new CFO last year. She's fantastic. We've kind of gone through all of our positions in say, are we fit for the next 10 years to execute against our plan?"
Cresa, a firm with a global presence, exclusively represents occupiers and works with its clients to design and execute integrated real estate strategies. From pre-pandemic 2019 to now, Cresa said company revenue is up 93%, the number of employees has increased 78% and project management revenue has grown three times.
Lickerman took over as permanent Cresa CEO in August 2021 after serving as interim chief executive for six months. A veteran industry executive with more than 35 years of experience, he has served in leadership roles at Cushman & Wakefield, DTZ, where he as global CEO from 2013-2015, and JLL.
When Cresa announced that Lickerman would become permanent CEO, the brokerage also named Schementi as president. But Schementi had just left Cushman & Wakefield and could not start at Cresa until July 2022 when his noncomplete restrictions expired.
At the time, Lickerman, Schementi, Chief Financial Officer Kristin MacCarthy and Kathryn “Ryndy” Ditmars, Cresa’s general counsel and chief human resources officer, all lived in Chicago. That played a major role in Cresa officially relocating its headquarters to the Windy City from Washington, D.C. McCarthy left Cresa in January and now serves as CFO of business consulting firm SBI. Cresa hired Tracey Luehring to replace MacCarthy as CFO.
Schementi's last day as president was Friday, but he will be available for the next two months to help with the transition, Lickerman said.
Schementi did not respond to requests for comment from CoStar News.
Less than three months after taking over as permanent CEO Lickerman struck a deal to partner with London-based brokerage Knight Frank to elevate Cresa's overseas offerings from a string of affiliates to a true international network that he said would enable the firm to serve multinational clients and win new business across the globe.
Under Lickerman, Cresa has grown by acquisition, especially in Texas, where it acquired Esrp, a Frisco-based boutique brokerage that, like Cresa, only works with occupiers of commercial space, in May 2022.
"We're doing a lot of cool stuff, and we're bringing a lot of people," Lickerman said. "We're doing [mergers and acquisitions]. We're bolstering service lines. We're building our project management business really big."
Cresa is headquartered in a 17-story building at 167 N. Green St. in Fulton Market that is known for a top-floor event space and basketball court that has become a popular practice facility for NBA teams in town to play the Chicago Bulls.
Lickerman said the next CEO would not necessarily need to be based in Chicago.
CoStar News reporter Candace Carlisle contributed.