Cushman Taps 3 New Market Heads As It Doubles 2024 Hiring

Cushman & Wakefield has been on a hiring spree in 2025, starting with its top positions.

Over the past couple of weeks alone, Cushman has named new leaders in three key markets, all leaving development shops to join the global brokerage.

It’s part of a broader push to expand its ranks and capitalize on a rebounding market, said Victoria Malkin, Cushman & Wakefield’s president of Americas markets.

All told, the brokerage more than doubled its 2024 full-year recruitment numbers across the business in the first nine months of 2025.

The firm has brought on three managing principals since Sept. 15: Chris Ahrenkiel in Atlanta, Anders Pesavento in Minneapolis and St. Paul and Shawn Jackson in Seattle and Portland. Combined, the trio brings over seven decades of CRE experience to the firm, with each new hire leaving leadership roles at development firms.

Ahrenkiel joins Cushman after a stint at Selig Enterprises, where he led the firm’s office division and leasing efforts at Google-anchored 1105 West Peachtree. Pesavento previously worked at Ryan Cos. as senior vice president on the capital markets team, and Jackson comes after serving as an executive vice president of asset operations at Urban Renaissance Group. 

Malkin said when building its roster of talent, Cushman considers each market carefully to determine what background makes the most sense: an internal hire, someone at a competing brokerage firm or a leader from the investment world. She said the company likes to hire people from a multitude of backgrounds. 

“There are times that we really look and value that investor perspective of understanding how our clients think and operate, how they look to service providers as their partner and what we can do to continue to push the needle,” Malkin said. 

Cushman overhauled its Americas structure about a year ago, which Malkin said was designed to improve how the firm advises clients and to strengthen both capital markets and occupier services.

Malkin said the company is in a strong financial position and poised for growth, and that it sees an active market ahead.

“We also have a market that is improving in front of us, and now is our time to continue to build our bench and fill key gaps and make sure we have the right professionals to serve our clients across markets and product types and specializations,” she said.

The brokerage is following through on a growth strategy it began in earnest late last year, one in which talent is a “critical component,” CEO Michelle MacKay said in April. The recruiting push is only a couple of years removed from a bumpy 2023, in which Cushman cut $130M in costs, or 10% of its general and administrative spending.

MacKay said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call in August that the capital markets brokers it has hired this year have brought in triple the revenue as those it brought on in 2024. 

“We're focusing, yes, on capital markets, yes, on leasing, but also on services talent and talent across the board,” she said. 

The early returns are promising. Cushman’s capital markets revenue grew by 26% in the second quarter, with the company still in the “very early stages” of its talent acquisition plans, MacKay said. 

The brokerage has added more than 30 capital markets teams in the last year, Malkin said.

“We are incredibly focused on recruitment and growth this year,” Malkin said. “We are seeing the growth from the investments we made in the business come to fruition.”

Cushman isn't the only national brokerage firm putting new faces atop major regional offices.

CBRE named Mamadou Baldé as its senior managing director and market leader for Greater Philadelphia this month, moving from his previous role as CBRE’s market leader for Pittsburgh and West Virginia.

Transwestern has also brought on a trio of market leaders since the start of August, hiring Clint Bawcom in Houston, Blake Johnson to lead its Chicago team and Nathan Knowles to oversee the Southeast.