Mitchell Rudin, the former head of Mack-Cali Realty and Brookfield Office Properties, is joining the leadership of a major brokerage.
Savills Studley has hired Rudin to serve as its president. He was hired to replace Michael Colacino, who served in the role for 16 years and is stepping down at the end of the year. Mitchell Steir will remain the tenant representation firm's chairman and CEO.
“Michael has been by my side for nearly three decades and has been a fantastic partner in helping me acquire, lead and ultimately merge this outstanding organization. I, of course, wish him the best in all of his future endeavors,” Steir said in a statement. “The incredible success and growth of this company would not have been possible without his dedication, intellect and unwavering commitment to the firm and our clients.”
Colacino represented clients like Time Warner, for which he brokered headquarters relocation deals that included the naming of Time Warner Center and the media giant's subsequent move to Hudson Yards, the New York Post reports. He also was instrumental, along with Steir, in navigating the brokerage from when it was named Studley and based in New York, to its acquisition by London-based Savills in 2014.
Colacino plans to leave the brokerage entirely and launch a PropTech software company.
"I've spent the last 30 years advocating for the application of software and analytics to real estate," he said in a statement. "I am eager to combine my background in software with my experience managing broker operations to change and improve our industry."
Rudin served as the CEO of CBRE's New York Tri-State offices until 2011, when he joined Brookfield to lead its U.S. office operations. In 2014, he was hired by Mack-Cali Realty, a New Jersey-based REIT, to serve as CEO. It was there that he executed a more than $745M national sell-off of its suburban office holdings, buying $500M worth of transit-oriented projects in New Jersey.
He went from Mack-Cali's CEO to vice chairman in 2017 — but still collected a $2.3M salary, the Post reported — and left the company earlier this year. Rudin will take over day-to-day operations from the New York nerve center of the company, which has offices in 31 North American cities.
