Cresa, the global brokerage that exclusively represents tenants, has tapped Lawson Martin and Dennis Smith to serve as managing directors and market leaders for the firm’s greater Los Angeles and Orange County operations. The promotions of Martin and Smith come at a critical time as Cresa said the personnel moves "are part of a larger corporate expansion plan which also includes the opening several new offices in Southern California in the coming months."

“Dennis and Lawson are integral members of our West Coast team, and their respective promotions are the result of hard work and dedication to growing our business,” Cresa President Greg Schementi said in a statement. In their new roles Martin and Smith, both of whom joined Cresa in 2014, will oversee a team of 40 professionals in transaction management, project management and industrial services in the region containing the counties of Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura.

Cresa is beefing up its team in the region, where in 2022 Cushman & Wakefield acquired Cresa Partners of Los Angeles, whose operations contained offices in West Los Angeles, Woodland Hills and Westlake Village, all in Los Angeles County. In the past 90 days, Cresa has added several new real estate pros in the Los Angeles region. The brokerage hired Patrick Benton as a senior vice president of project management, Ryan Pettersen as a senior vice president of transaction management and Davorin Kristo as a vice president of transaction management.

Eastdil Secured has hired Rob Walters from Avison Young in Washington, D.C., Walters, who worked on sales and leasing deals with an aggregate value of $4.5 billion during his more than 12 years at Avison Young, will lead Eastdil's data center and digital infrastructure business. He'll focus on investment sales, leasing, financing and joint ventures.

The addition of Walters, who has a track record of delivering results for his clients, "further validates our commitment to thoughtfully building out" Eastdil's team to provide "tangible value for clients around the world in the growing digital infrastructure and data center space," Eastdil CEO Roy Hilton March said in a statement. Also, with Walters leading its data center business, Eastdil can accelerate the growth of its presence in the sector that has more than $4 billion in data center-related projects in process, brokerage President D. Michael Van Konynenburg said in a statement.

For his part, Walters said he is "beyond excited to join the team and have an opportunity to work alongside Sean McDermott, Collins Ege, Mark Chu and the rest of the Eastdil team" as they endeavor to expand its data center business.

Newmark has fortified its agency leasing business in Phoenix with the hiring of veteran landlord representative Pat Devine. He has more than 25 years of experience specializing in marketing and leasing office properties for institutional owners and others. Devine most recently worked at CBRE. In October, he returned to the world's-largest brokerage as a senior vice president in its industrial and logistics practice. Before that, he served as a senior vice president at Artis REIT, where he oversaw leasing of its portfolio of industrial and office projects in Phoenix, Denver, Minneapolis and Houston.

Before he joined Artis REIT, he spent nearly four years at Cushman & Wakefield and worked at CBRE from 2007-2013. He also worked at Trammell Crow, which CBRE acquired in 2006. “Pat has established himself as a trusted advisor with a history of guiding clients through complex leasing transactions,” Greg May, a Newmark executive vice president and market leader of its West region, said in a statement.

The Davis Cos., a Boston-based real estate investment and development firm that owns properties in several sectors, has appointed Mai Zhang as senior vice president of asset management. In his new role, Zhang will lead the asset management of Davis’ multifamily portfolio that contains direct and joint-venture investments. The firm said Zhang also will play critical role in the expansion of its multifamily investment portfolio.

From 2013 until May, Zhang worked at JBG Smith, the real estate investment trust that is Amazon's development partner at the online retail giant's second headquarters in northern Virginia. At JBG Smith, he led the operating strategy for about 6,500 residential units and oversaw investments where the REIT could add value to the properties. “Mai’s experience with a fully integrated, top tier investor/operator platform with entrepreneurial roots that are similar to ours is the precise kind of talent we had hoped to add to the team," Cappy Daume, chief portfolio management officer at Davis, said in a statement. "While we view multifamily assets first and foremost as attractive real estate investments, we are mindful that they are also communities in which people live." Zhang said he looks forward to helping Davis expand its multifamily portfolio of more than 5,000 units across the United States.

Savills has fortified its Atlanta team with the addition of veteran tenant representative Allison Bittel. She joined Savills from Colliers, where she worked for the past four years. Before that, she spent more than 18 years at Cushman & Wakefield, where she established herself as a successful tenant rep. At Colliers, Bittel she will be a senior managing director and work with new Atlanta market leader David Rubenstein and other key players in the region. “Allison’s resume speaks for itself," Rubenstein said in a statement. "As the Atlanta market continues to attract companies eager to plant their respective flags in one of the fastest growing metropolitan regions in the United States, she will play a vital role in guiding occupiers as they navigate the city’s real estate landscape."

During her 22-year career as an office tenant rep, Bittel completed transactions involving a total of more than 7.5 million square feet space. "I'm very excited to be joining the amazing team at Savills working alongside leaders in the region to continue to fuel growth and strategy for Atlanta," she said in a LinkedIn post. "I will continue to serve as an advisor to office clients. A huge thank you to David Rubenstein and Chris White, as well as Janet (Setcavage) Woods for this exciting opportunity."

Skender, a Chicago-based contractor, has promoted Stacy Laughlin to chief financial officer, Jerry Ball to chief operating officer and Lisa Latronico to chief people officer. Laughlin previously served as controller, Ball as chief financial officer and Latronico as vice president of people and culture. The firm also promoted Clint Siebert, who previously served as information technology manager, to director of technology, and Ryan Cotter to preconstruction executive from senior preconstruction manager.

Skender said it projects to record a nearly 100% increase in revenue in the three-year period from the end of 2020 to the end of this year and that the promotions support and enable continued growth at the firm. "These strategic updates not only reward the hard work of these five individuals, but they also open up exciting new opportunities for the broader Skender team" and deliver results for the firm's clients, Skender President and CEO Justin Brown said in a statement.