Town’s Anna Zarro, SVP of development marketing and leasing, calls it quits

UPDATED, 6:41 p.m., June 12: Anna Zarro, Town Residential’s senior vice president of development marketing and leasing, resigned on Friday morning, The Real Deal has learned.

Town confirmed that Zarro had informed leadership of her decision to leave a number of weeks ago. Her departure is the latest in a string of exits from the brokerage in the past few months.

“Within recent weeks, Anna Zarro informed me that she did not have long-term plans to remain in her position,” CEO Andrew Heiberger said in a statement. “This morning, she tendered her resignation. While I am saddened by her decision, I wish her all the best and am sure she will be successful in her future endeavors.”

Heiberger added that just this week, the marketing and leasing division hired Elanna Jochimek, formerly a residential sales manager at the Clarett Group who’s also worked at Macklowe Properties and Equity Residential. It also hired Jamie Reimer, who returned to Town from Anbau Enterprises. “We have an incredibly strong team and I am confident that we will continue to raise the bar and surpass expectations,” he  said.

Zarro began her career as an agent at Citi Habitats in 2005, and joined Town in 2012 as a leasing manager. In 2013, she was promoted to director of development marketing and leasing.

Her departure could hurt a division that she’s bolstered significantly. Town’s current leasing portfolio includes 3,000 new development units, up from 500 in 2013.

Zarro sat on Town’s executive committee with other “heads of state” at Town, a group that aims to meet weekly or biweekly. She told TRD earlier this spring that her division has been “in nothing but growth mode” in recent years.

“When I started, the division was very small. It existed as a byproduct of clients having this need,” she said during an April interview. Since then, new development leasing has been “pushed into a strong line of focus.” Speaking about the competitive nature of the new development space, she said: “I don’t get distracted with what other people are doing, but focus on how to maximize what we can do.”

Zarro’s move adds to a list of key executives that left Town since the beginning of this year, in the areas of new development marketing, finance and technology. Some of the executives were fired and others resigned, sources told TRD.

The list includes former Managing Director of IT Chris Reyes,  former Director Of Research and Business Development Mike Falcone, former Director of Market Reporting Damien Parker, and former Controller James Corcoran.

Town has taken a “Nothing to see here, folks,” approach to the management changes. “The company is growing year-over-year,” Heiberger told TRD during an interview at the firm’s corporate headquarters in April. Launched in 2010, the firm has nearly 600 agents and is among the largest in the city, according to TRD’s annual ranking of top firms. As of March 29, Town had listings worth $437.3 million, according to TRD research using data from On-Line Residential. The firm closed sales of worth $527.9 million for the 12 months that ended March 31, according to OLR.

Earlier this spring, when asked about recent departures, Town invited TRD to visit the firm’s corporate headquarters to see the state of things firsthand. “[Town] is a company built on culture,” said Itzy Garay, Town’s executive vice president of leasing and one of Heiberger’s earliest hires.

On the management side, though, there has been a notable transition.

One example is Jared Cohen, who joined Town in December as a marketing manager. In April, he told TRD that he’s spearheading a “course correction” in the marketing department. “Nothing was wrong, nothing was broken,” he added, noting that Town’s website traffic is up 14 percent since he started. “It was just, ‘It’s working at a seven, let’s make it work at a 10 or 11.’”