Movers: Office Brokerage Madison Rose Lands New COOS

As the year comes to a close, Chicago real estate firms are touting their new executive recruits and internal promotions.

Commercial office leasing brokerage Madison Rose hired Chris Beer as its new Chief Operation Officer. She began her career as an options trader working for several Chicago-based trading firms before moving into strategic advisory and operations roles. Chicago-based Madison Rose represents several prominent Chicago office landlords, including the ownership of 150 North Michigan Avenue, the Chicago Board of Trade Building and the Jeweler’s Building.

After two decades at MetLife Investment Management, Lou Kruk joined Oak Brook-based Inland Real Estate Group. Kruk will serve as President and CEO of Inland’s institutional asset management platform, Inland Institutional. Kruk will work with Inland CIO Joseph Binder to lead the firm’s global debt and equity investment strategies. Inland and its member companies have conducted over $125 billion in commercial real estate transactions since 1968.

John Parrett, a member of CBRE’s Capital Markets, Debt and Structured Finance team in Chicago was promoted to vice chairman. The team also consists of Peter Marino, William Howe, Molly Green, Elizabeth Arnold, Tom Keating, Jake Durburg and Harmony Morrison.

Chicago-based Quantum Real Estate Advisors, an investment sales brokerage, promoted Brett Berlin to senior vice president this month. Berlin has been involved in more than $500 million in transactions since 2013.

Chicago-based McHugh Construction announced four promotions and a new hire in late November. McHugh is a fourth-generation, privately owned company that has been involved with major developments in Chicago as well as other markets including Nashville, St. Louis, Minneapolis, South Florida.

Jeanne Bartels, who has worked for McHugh for 18 years, has been promoted from her prior position as a senior project manager to a new role as project executive. Notably, she is overseeing the pre-construction of 1325 West Fulton Street.

An assistant project manager with McHugh Construction since 2022, Kyle Jennings has been promoted to project manager. Jennings has been involved with several entertainment and sports-related projects such as the expansion of Fifth Third Arena to add two ice rinks including a 1,500-seat championship rink.

Less than ten years after joining McHugh as an intern, Michael Sinickas was recently promoted from assistant project manager to project manager. One of his most notable projects is the ongoing office-to-residential conversion at 65 East Wacker Drive.

Kasey Bethea was promoted from project engineer to assistant superintendent while working on the Fifth Third Area expansion. He also worked on the 74-story, 738 multifamily high rise on Michigan Avenue called 1000M.

Chelsea Hoff, formerly of Chicago contractor Power Construction, recently joined McHugh. She will be assigned to the Wacker Drive office-to-residential project.