Cresa Taps Consultant Ray Anderson as CEO

Cresa went outside traditional brokerage ranks for its next chief executive, hiring Ray Anderson as CEO while the occupier-focused firm ramps up acquisitions, recruiting and technology investment.

Anderson succeeds Tod Lickerman, ending a CEO search that began last year, Bisnow first reported. Lickerman remains on Cresa’s board and will stay involved in recruiting as well as mergers and acquisitions, while Anderson steps into the top job as the Chicago-based tenant representation firm looks to compound growth after a flurry of recent deals.

Anderson arrives from EY-Parthenon, Ernst & Young’s strategy and consulting arm, where he was a senior partner advising large public and private companies on value creation, enterprise transformation and mergers and acquisitions. Before that, he spent nearly a decade at Huron Consulting Group working on restructurings, turnarounds and transactions.

“Recruiting is going to be very important, and we’re going to continue to be very aggressive,” Anderson told the outlet, adding that M&A is “second nature” to him and will remain a core growth lever.

Cresa’s board chairman, Gary Gregg, said in a news release that Anderson’s background in corporate transformation and dealmaking fits squarely with the firm’s occupier-advocacy mission.

In October, the brokerage acquired Dallas-based Fischer, its largest competitor focused exclusively on occupiers, in what Cresa called the biggest transaction in its three-decade history. The deal reshaped the firm’s business mix, giving it a sizable portfolio management base to complement its traditional deal-focused advisory work.

The brokerage has been busy, recently acquiring data analytics firm Bluechip Insights, project management shops CMPG, NorthStar Owners Representation and Pacific Program Management, and made targeted senior hires, including building out a data center capital markets and advisory platform, according to the outlet.

Technology is also a priority. Fischer brought proprietary portfolio management software that Cresa plans to deploy more broadly, while Anderson will oversee expanded use of artificial intelligence across internal operations and client-facing tools, according to the publication.

“We’re not talking about science experiments,” Anderson said. “We’re talking about things that meaningfully improve clients’ work product and brokers’ productivity.”

With offices across the US and Canada, Anderson said he plans a months-long listening tour, followed by pursuing more deals.

— Eric Weilbacher