Cresa selects former Cushman & Wakefield Executive Schementi as next President

This article originally appeared on CoStar.

Cresa, the global brokerage firm that represents occupiers of commercial space, has landed the person it had set its sights on to become president of the firm, but he won't be able to start until next summer.

Cresa has picked Greg Schementi, a former top tenant representative executive at Cushman & Wakefield, to join Cresa in July 2022. Based in Chicago, Schementi must wait until then because he is under employment restrictions from his previous employer.

"The timing of a year from now is actually pretty perfect because of a lot of the growth planning we’re doing right now," Cresa CEO Tod Lickerman said in an interview.

In the interim, Tom Birnbach, vice chairman of Cresa's board and acting president, will continue to fill the role and have strategic oversight of Cresa's more than 80 offices across the globe. Birnbach is a founding member of the firm and a managing principal of Cresa's Washington, D.C., regional offices.

Hiring a permanent president is consistent with Cresa's long-term plans, Lickerman said. A Cresa board member since 2019, Lickerman took over as CEO in February, when Jim Underhill stepped down after leading the firm for five years.

"I joined the board a couple years ago, and we sort of laid out plans at the board level to kind of claim a really cool space in the industry," Lickerman said in an interview. "Our current president, Tom Birnbach, is a great guy, the No. 2 guy in our D.C. office. He’s doing it alongside his day job. He’s doing a great job, but we wanted to make the commitment to get a real full-time pro in the role, and that’s Greg."

Lickerman said Schementi, with whom he's worked in the past, is "a dyed-in-the-wool tenant rep, just a tenacious tenant advocate."

Schementi left Cushman & Wakefield earlier this month after 17 years.

"Working at C&W and predecessor companies has been fulfilling beyond any expectation, affording me the opportunity to learn, build meaningful relationships with colleagues and be of service to clients. I am grateful for the friendships and proud of our work together," he said in a LinkedIn post. "Next, I plan to take some time to recharge and look forward to serving in a leadership role in the global tenant rep space in the future."

Lickerman and Schementi worked together at Cushman & Wakefield predecessor DTZ, where Lickerman served as CEO from 2013-2015. Schementi was DTZ's head of U.S. brokerage at that time.

"We were gearing up for a search, but then we said, 'Let’s go see if we can get Greg.' Because my recommendation is that if there’s one person we could get for the job, it would be Greg Schementi," Lickerman said.