Compass taps Rory Golod as GM of New York

Rory Golod — who for two years was Compass CEO Robert Reffkin’s right-hand-man — has been tapped as general manager of the firm’s New York region.

As GM, Golod will oversee Compass’ 1,400 agents and 18 offices in New York, where the SoftBank-backed brokerage has been increasing its brick-and-mortar footprint.

Compass introduced the GM role about a year ago as the firm ballooned in size. The company — which was valued at $4.4 billion after a $400 million Series F in September — now has north of 7,000 agents around the country, which it’s carved up into 11 regions. They include New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago and others.

Golod, a Long Island native, joined Compass in 2014 as a strategy and business development manager. In 2016, he became Reffkin’s chief of staff, a job that is part gatekeeper, part facilitator.

Because Reffkin spends so much time traveling his chief of staff acts as his “proxy so he can be out there running the company,” said Golod, who will be succeeded by Neda Navab, who worked at Sidewalk Labs. Golod will now report to Compass COO Maelle Gavet, and said he plans to transition to the new job by the end of the year.

Because real estate is so “hyper local,” Golod said, the GM facilitates a certain amount of autonomy for regions. “We don’t want headquarters mandating how to do something,” he said. (For example, marketing practices vary by region as do commission splits, which are notoriously high in states like California and Florida.)

The New York region includes Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Hamptons, Westchester and Greenwich, Connecticut. Next year, Compass plans to expand into parts of Long Island and northern New Jersey.

In Manhattan, Compass recently inked a lease for a 5,400-square-foot space at 962 Madison Avenue, which had an asking rent of $1.35 million a year. The storefront has a 400-square-foot entrance. In April, Compass took 32,000-square-feet at SL Green Realty’s 10 East 53rd Street.