Thinking out of the box takes Serko to the top.

If there's one thing Cushman & Wakefield's newly promoted executive vice president Jon Serko doesn't like, it's being pigeonholed.

Where many brokers would be satisfied to carve a niche in either tenant or landlord rep, investment sales or leasing brokerage, Serko has developed the skills and has had the ambition not to be limited by such distinctions. Instead, he has become what he calls a "complete real estate professional," one versed to some degree in nearly all of the industry's facets

"There's a tendency in our business to categorize what you do," Serko said. "You're a finance broker or a sales broker or a residential broker instead of a well rounded person who knows the business. That's what I think our clients value, someone prepared to handle all of their needs."

The deals he has done, which have kept Serko in the elite pool of C&W's top 100 brokers every year since he joined the firm in 1990, reflect the diversity of his knowledge. From big leases, to big building sales, to deals of a national and global scope, Serko has participated in a staggering variety of transactions.

Among the more notable recent deals in which he has played a prominent role, Serko helped bag insurance giant, American General, for C&W, the largest account in C&W's history. Meeting the Houston based company's CEO by chance in a Manhattan elevator, Serko assembled a team that vaulted stiff competition from nearly every major brokerage nationally for the chance to handle American General's massive real estate portfolio, including the management and leasing of it's two million s/f, Houston HQ.

"I was the single point person responsible for American General's 11 million s/f of real estate," said Serko, who helmed a C&W team of over 50 to tackle the assignment. "We implemented everything that had to do with their occupancy."

Serko said that, aside from the personal rapport he had established with the company's CEO, American General was impressed by his decision to focus on making the company's portfolio maximally efficient and discovering and executing as many cost saving measures as possible. He started that effort once he received the assignment by subleasing out one million s/f of space in the company's mammoth headquarters campus. "Some of the bigger savings came when we studied how we could relocate some of their facilities to less expensive markets," Serko said.

Serko's work nationally hasn't impeded him from becoming a big-time Manhattan broker. Tapped by major Manhattan property owners, the Ginsberg Family, to rep 625 Madison Avenue when the building's long-time anchor tenant, Revlon, left, Serko quickly leased the entire 300K s/f chunk of vacated space. When he was done filling the building, he then went on, in an unconventional move for a leasing broker, to handle the building's sale.

625 Madison had received an unsolicited offer to purchase the property that fell on receptive ears in the Ginsberg clan. The family consulted with Serko on how it should proceed.

"I felt we could do a lot better than the offer, and we did," Serko said. "We wound up selling the property to SL Green."

In an especially creative deal executed in October of 2004, Serko found the American Cancer Society a combined Manhattan headquarters and "Hope Lodge," a building that provides free housing to cancer patients undergoing cancer treatment.

"The concept they wanted to bring to Manhattan that they brought to other cities was free housing for adults with cancer," Serko said. "That component made finding a headquarters a process that required a lot of ingenuity."

Serko knew from the outset that most likely only a new development could accommodate the Society's specific needs.

Through an exhaustive search that Serko said included him "dialing every major owner," he finally discovered that the Durst Organization was developing a residential building on 56th Street, in what turned out to be the perfect venue for what the Society was trying to do.

"This was an opportunity to bring 65 rooms to people who need cancer treatment," Serko said. "It will help hundreds, maybe even thousands of patients every year."

Although the building was a rental property and the Durst Organization "had no idea of selling space," Serko managed to arrange the sale of the lower floors to the Society for its headquarters and lodge.

For his work, Serko was given the 2004 Cushman & Wakefield Most Ingenious Deal of the Year award.