Clelia Peters named president of Warburg

Frederick Peters will remain at the helm of brokerage as CEO

Fred and Clelia Peters
Fred and Clelia Peters

Clelia Peters was just named president of Warburg Realty, two years after joining the brokerage as a consultant, The Real Deal has learned. Her father, Frederick Peters, will remain at the helm of the company as CEO.

The appointment follows a major shake-up at the nearly 120-year-old firm that saw a complete recalibration of the management team and defections by several high-profile agents.

Frederick will continue to be involved in the day-to-day brokerage operations, while Clelia will oversee marketing, technology and overall corporate strategy, including establishing new relationships with brokerage partners nationally and internationally.

“It seemed to make a lot of sense to create positions for each of us which outline our particular skill sets,” Frederick said of the decision to appoint his daughter president. “I am at heart a broker who somehow ended up running a real estate company. She is really trained in the intricacies of business and she’s also by inclination a real innovator. She thinks extremely creatively about the future.”

A graduate of Yale and Columbia, Clelia worked for four years at Boston Consulting Group and spent a year working on a startup with Wall Street veteran Sallie Krawcheck before joining Warburg as a consultant in 2013. At BCG, her specialties included “change management,” she said.

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Shortly after she came on board-full time at Warburg as director of strategy, the brokerage went through a complete overhaul of the management team.

Several top executives departed, including sales directors Robert Doernberg and Jane Bayard, and Michael Guerra, a Douglas Elliman veteran who was recruited last April to lead Warburg’s push into Brooklyn. Richard Steinberg, a top producer at the firm, also left  last year.  New hires included Jasmine Takanikos, a marketing consultant focused on brand marketing for agents, and Beth McBride, previously at Rubenstein Associates.

“We had a great team when I arrived but they weren’t necessarily the team that was the right fit in terms of growing into the future,” Clelia told TRD on Tuesday. “It was both a tumultuous time in the industry and a time of transition within the company. It was probably a higher anxiety period than the company was used to.”

Clelia’s new title was announced to agents in a company-wide meeting Tuesday. Kevelyn Guzman, formerly the company’s director of operations, will now be COO.