Even amid these turbulent economic times, there is continued churn in the executive ranks of commercial real estate companies. Now a 30-year industry veteran is hanging out his own shingle to help firms recruit the right talent.
Jon Torgeson has formed Torgeson Associates, a retained search firm serving all segments of the commercial market, including all property types and disciplines — investment advisory, development, brokerage, mortgage banking, REITs, operations and construction. Retained search firms are those hired by companies to find top-quality executives as opposed to search firms hired by execs looking for jobs. Torgeson Associates is based in Los Angeles.
“The need for strong executive talent among real estate companies is greater than ever, reflecting expansion of the commercial real estate sector in the past 10 years and the challenges confronting this global industry today,” says Torgeson. “For example, today real estate organizations are leaner than ever before. This demands both a different kind of executive, who can manage and lead a leanly structured organization, as well as other professionals who can be part of organizations when they scale up.”
Torgeson has been a search consultant since 2005, and was national marketing director of office properties for all U.S. markets and managing officer of CB Richard Ellis’ downtown Los Angeles brokerage team. Earlier this decade, he was senior vice present and national sales manager for PropertyFirst.com, now known as LoopNet Inc.
His new firm conducts high-level searches on a national basis, but is primarily targeting clients based in or doing business in Los Angeles, Orange County, the Inland Empire, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Dallas, Denver and Houston. Clients include CB Richard Ellis Investors, Maguire Properties, Colliers International and the Clarett Group.