Tracey Luehring joined commercial real estate advisory firm Cresa as Chief Financial Officer this week, selected for her experience leading mergers and acquisitions.
Luehring’s abilities to expand business will be important for the Chicago-based company as it finds itself in a unique position in the wake of the pandemic. While many brokerages represent both office landlords and tenants, Cresa’s brokers only represent tenants.
As landlords search for companies to fill space left vacant due to work-from-home policies, Cresa’s brokers and services are in high demand.
Leuhring will play a key role in the company’s growth, including its focus on acquiring businesses that add to its other offerings, such as project management and consulting. Although Cresa is based in Chicago, it has a presence in dozens of cities in the U.S. and Canada.
Cresa has acquired two project management companies and one commercial real estate firm in the last half of this year. Several more are in the works as Luehring steps into her new role.
Luehring holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and comes to Cresa from consulting firm CrossVue. She has also served as the CFO of cybersecurity company Viking Cloud, held multiple senior positions at JLL and worked for professional services firm Aon.
While at Aon, she oversaw a $4 billion portfolio sale to investment giant Blackstone.
Cresa appealed to her because of the firm’s close-knit feel, Luehring said.
“If a small brokerage is thinking of selling to one of the Fortune 500 giants, they’re not going to get the same attention that they would in bonding together with Cresa who really is going to care about them and empower them to continue to lead their division brokerage office …That’s where I think the advantage is,” she said.
View this article in The Real Deal.