This article originally appeared on GlobeSt.com.
WASHINGTON, DC—Cresa has recruited Tod Lickerman to its Board of Directors. Lickerman previously served as Global President and Americas CEO at Cushman & Wakefield and plans to help Cresa’s executive leadership on their ongoing growth strategy. “My history in this industry is to help build providers,” Lickerman tells GlobeSt.com.
An industry veteran of 33 years, Lickerman also served as Global CEO of DTZ, where from 2013 to 2017 he carved out the international real estate services company DTZ from its Australian parent company and sold the company to a private equity consortium led by TPG, PAG and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. Lickerman also oversaw the Cassidy Turley acquisition in the US and the international real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield. C&W went public in 2018 and has an enterprise value of over $7 billion.
Previously at JLL, Lickerman ran several divisions including Corporate Solutions, Commercial Solutions, Healthcare, Energy and Sustainability Services, Corporate Property Services, European Facility Management and Project and Development Services during his 23 years at the firm.
Today he is the founder, chair and managing partner of The Impact Investment Co.
Cresa, for its part, has been similarly active, in the last three years having acquired and integrated 20 companies, in addition to 15 new offices outside of North America. Lickerman is the first outside board member for Cresa.
He says Cresa is well positioned for further growth, as it is a highly-differentiated speciality provider. “In many ways it is on the other side of the spectrum on which I have worked, but is also a big category winner.”
Unlike some of his former companies, Lickerman says that Cresa is better off as a private company that is leadership owned. “Big platform companies have to raise a lot of debt and equity to build themselves and then ultimately go public.” Cresa, by contract, has no debt and therefore can be nimble and able to chart its own strategy, he says.
Another plus for remaining private: public companies tend to have directors who are not from the industry and then need to be educated on the issues, Lickerman says. The CRE industry in particular is complex and very talent-oriented. “Cresa has a natural alignment between governance, ownership and strategy,” Lickerman says.