In August, Jeff Yamaguchi moved from Las Vegas to become the first chief operations officer of the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group. By the end of 2005, he was out of a job in New York. Details of his abrupt departure after an approximately four-month tenure emerged in February, and Yamaguchi himself could not be reached for comment. His leaving is the latest changeup in the leadership of the firm’s 9-month-old combined development marketing division.
With Yamaguchi gone, Corcoran CEO and president Pam Liebman is the de facto head of the Corcoran Sunshine Group. Sunshine Group founder Louise Sunshine had already stepped down as CEO and chairwoman of her namesake firm and reportedly into a consulting role with the newer group.
Liebman, whom Yamaguchi reported directly to, explained that he wanted to return to Las Vegas — and the group couldn’t accommodate him there, either.
“We had to relocate him from Las Vegas,” Liebman told The Real Deal, “and we have an operation in Las Vegas as well. And we needed him to pay some attention out there, and he really wanted to get back to Las Vegas. It was more a question of he wanted to head back to be out on the West Coast. We really had no work for him in Las Vegas.”
A June merger between the Corcoran Group and the Sunshine Group, both owned by NRT, formed the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, which serves as the marketing arm for Corcoran’s development properties. When Yamaguchi was hired about two months after the merger, he was touted as “an ideal chief operating officer” for the group, according to a Corcoran release, because of his executive experience. Yamaguchi was a 26-year veteran of the luxury hotel condominium industry, and his last stint before Corcoran Sunshine was as vice president of operations for the Residences at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.