CBRE Heavyweight Russell Ingrum Moves To Cushman & Wakefield As Firm Rights The Ship In Texas

After nearly three decades at CBRE, a top Texas broker is taking his talents to Cushman & Wakefield. 

Russell Ingrum joined Cushman & Wakefield this week as the firm’s executive vice chair in Dallas, where he will head up the national office practice for its capital markets division.

A pair of Ingrum’s former CBRE coworkers, brokers Jared Chua in Houston and Matt Murphy in Dallas, also moved to Cushman & Wakefield, according to Green Street. 

Ingrum will be tasked with turning around the firm’s office sector fortunes in Texas, where it struggled to produce strong showings in the state’s three largest markets last year.

“I'm doing a lot of listening and understanding the skill sets we have — our goal is to be great — and no one walks in with the prescription,” Ingrum told CoStar. “There's a process to it.” 

The firm's market share in the office sector fell by nearly 50% from its 15.4% share in 2022. With a market share of 8% last year, Cushman placed fifth on Real Estate Alert’s 2024 league table, Green Street reported.

Cushman & Wakefield’s additions are the latest examples of the firm’s expansion in Texas, a state heavily favored by investors. Former JLL brokers Kelsey Shebay in Austin and Todd Savage in Dallas both joined the firm as executive managing directors earlier this year. 

“The market is getting better with more investors interested in office and more deals coming to the market,” Ingrum told CoStar. “It's not a tidal wave by any stretch, but there's an increased flow of deals and investor interest in Class AA building and A+ locations.”

The 2022 loss of brokers Mike McDonald and Jonathan Napper to JLL started the firm’s office sector slide. That year also saw New York brokers Adam Spies and Douglas Harmon exit for Newmark.

Since adding Miles Treaster as president of capital markets for the Americas last summer, Cushman & Wakefield has added extensively to its roster.

The firm brought on former Eastdil Secured broker Adam Pastor in April to improve portfolio sales in the industrial sector. Weeks after losing a high-profile team of office agency leasing brokers to Houston-based Partners Real Estate, it hired J.P. Hutcheson, Amanda Nebel and Eric Siegrest of Parkway to head up its local office agency leasing team. 

“[Ingrum’s] expertise will be instrumental in driving client engagement, business development and platform-wide collaboration,” Treaster told Green Street.

Ingrum started his career at Trammell Crow Co. before moving to CBRE for the last 28 years. He was most recently vice chairman at CBRE and a senior partner on its Texas Capital Markets Institutional Properties team.

Chua spent 17 years at CBRE and was most recently a senior vice president. He joins Cushman & Wakefield as an executive managing director. After four years with the company, Murphy left CBRE as a senior associate and will be a director at Cushman.