Krasnow fills the void at Trammell Crow Co.

Cushman & Wakefield executive managing director, Kenneth M. Krasnow, an 18 year veteran of the firm who had risen through the ranks of brokerage to become manager of C&W's New York City brokerage operations, is leaving C&W to head Trammell Crow's growing New York City brokerage team.

A well-known figure in the industry, who often was the face of C&W when speaking at the firm's annual economic forums and quarterly market meetings, Krasnow is expected to boost Trammell Crow's profile in Manhattan, a market where it has conspicuously lagged compared to its national and international presence.

For Krasnow, the appointment offers what he called a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to build and put his own stamp on a brokerage business that he indicated already is surrounded by a platform of services--such as capital markets, project management and investment sales expertise--as sophisticated as that found at any of the leading real estate services firms.

Krasnow said he plans to grow Trammell Crow's team of roughly a dozen brokers to eventually over 50 in the next few years, a task he has had much experience with, having hired over 120 brokers during his tenure at C&W.

A more sizable brokerage team, guided by the same hand that ran C&W's storied Manhattan brokerage business, are just the changes that Trammell Crow hopes will vault it into contention with the likes of CBRE, C&W, Newmark and Jones Lang LaSalle.

"This is a very interesting opportunity for me," Krasnow said. "Trammell Crow has all the pieces of the puzzle. But it's like a donut, there's a hole in the middle and I think they're filling that by getting me and giving me the leeway to build a brokerage team."

"At C&W, I was in charge of managing something that was already built, it was more about maintaining what was already successful. Here, I really get to build something and really leave my mark, which is an opportunity I always dreamed of having."

Krasnow's insider knowledge of the leasing market, as well as his relationships and familiarity with so many of the city's biggest space users, made him the latest and perhaps most important recruit yet for Trammell Crow's New York region president, Richard Bernstein.

"Suffice it to say, we are extremely excited to have Ken join the firm," Bernstein said. "He's the kind of guy, coming from where he did, who will be able to get a team of brokers to work seamlessly with our platform of services and use them to the fullest so that we can be maximally successful."

"And having Ken working with the brokers here to develop pursuit strategies for big deals will be critical for us."

Because he spent the entirety of his professional career in real estate at C&W, where he was known as much for his affability as his near encyclopedic knowledge of the market, Krasnow described the move also as bittersweet.

"C&W has been like a family to me," Krasnow said.

"But this is the kind of challenge that I've always wanted to take on, and these types of opportunities rarely come around, so I just knew it was the right direction for me."

Although performance and market share have always been the yardsticks of success in the brokerage industry, Krasnow also indicated that a quality work environment is an essential element to building the kind of culture that attracts and nurtures first-rate brokers.

"It sounds like one of those corny things, but people like to get up in the morning and go to a job that they're excited about," Krasnow said. "One of my priorities is to build that type of environment. I look at that as one of the most important things I'm doing here."

Cushman & Wakefield's New York regional manager, Joe Harbert, will temporarily take over Krasnow's responsibilities at C&W until a replacement is found.