Ed Forst will start his new job as president and CEO of Cushman & Wakefield on Jan. 6. Operations experience trumped lack of extensive real estate exposure on Ed's resume, C&W chairman and EMEA CEO Carlo Barel di Sant'Albano (above) told us this week. Real estate experience was not at the top of the list of priorities, Carlo says. What C&W parent company Exor got is a performance-oriented CEO with an operations track record (principal operating officer of Harvard for a year) and an understanding of global service organization challenges (10 years as global co-head of Goldman Sachs' investment management division), as well as an engaging, charismatic leader for the company's more than 16,000 employees.

Carlo also tells us Exor played a key role on the search committee (via Carlo), and so Ed's outlook aligns with the parent company's long-term plans. Ed (above) was at Goldman Sachs at the same time as Exor COO Shahriar Tadjbakhsh, but Carlo says they worked in different areas. Rather, Ed's reputation preceded him to C&W. Ed's work at Harvard, in '08 and '09, overlapped with his service as an advisor to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.