Cushman & Wakefield Announces Industrial Group Leadership Changes

CHICAGO, Ill. - Effective January 1, 2013, John Morris will become Leader of Industrial Services for the Americas for Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., succeeding Jim Dieter, executive vice president and current head of the service line, announced Jim Underhill, CEO of the Americas.

Dieter will remain with Cushman & Wakefield through 2013 and work closely with John to support the company’s aggressive growth plans for the industrial practice.

“This leadership succession plan gives our company the opportunity to build on what Jim Dieter has built over the past three years, leveraging his skills and experience while transitioning one of our rising stars into a leadership role,” said Underhill.

Morris, currently the leader of Cushman & Wakefield’s Global Business Consulting service line, joined the commercial real estate services firm in 2005. As an industry leader in network and location strategy for industrial operations, he has an extensive background in supply chain strategy, network design, cost reduction and transportation operations, working with many Fortune 500 companies.

“Jim and John share a vision for the future of our growing service line,” said Underhill. “This transition is aligned with market expectations for higher levels of service and expertise across our multi-service global platform.”

“Jim has a long and storied career and has been a strong leader since taking over the industrial platform,” said Underhill. “His leadership has been instrumental in growing our platform, both people and revenue, which by the end of 2012 is projected to have increased by 70 percent.”

The renewed focus of the industrial group will be to retain its leadership position in landlord and developer representation while continuing to build the firm’s advisory brokerage capabilities for current and prospective tenants. The balance of the current team, including Pete Quinn, Jamie Kishel, Peter Walpole and Erica Mielziner will remain in place.

“I look forward to partnering with John to continue to further strengthen our already successful industrial platform,” said Dieter. “He has been a cornerstone in our Consulting practice, particularly in the industrial sector, which makes this a natural segue for him and for the growth of the entire industrial team.”

Cushman & Wakefield's industrial brokerage platform provides global resources and local expertise for tenant and landlord representation, disposition and acquisition services, transaction management, and industrial consulting including labor and demographic analysis. In 2011, in the U.S. alone, this group completed more than 6,100 industrial real estate transactions - totaling 225 million square feet - with an aggregate value in excess of $6.5 billion.