Cushman & Wakefield has promoted J.D. Lumpkin to market leader of its San Francisco office. The company announced his promotion yesterday, and we caught up with J.D. last night at Cushman & Wakefield's The State of Real Estate event at Yerba Buena Gardens (more than 700 people packed the theater for the real estate deets and stayed for the cocktails).

J.D. tells us he's to step into the role of market leader as Cushman & Wakefield moves into 2016 on the heels of last fall's merger with DTZ. He hopes to help make the transition as smooth as possible for the combined talent the merger brings together under one roof.

He will oversee the San Francisco office while continuing his brokerage practice and leading the company's Investor Services Council in San Francisco.

He praised C&W Northwest Market Leader Mike Kamm, calling him a great teacher. (Mike was West Region president for DTZ before the merger and president of Cassidy Turley before that.)

J.D. has leased and sold more than 9M SF of real estate in his 19 years with Cushman & Wakefield and is perhaps best known for his role snagging San Francisco's largest office lease—714k SF at Salesforce Tower.