Franklin Street, after hiring dozens of employees in the past two years as other commercial real estate firms cut back, is adding a new chief revenue officer as the Tampa, Florida-based brokerage sets its sights on a national expansion.

Franklin Street hired Jess Johnson as its chief revenue officer and client experience leader. He joined the firm from Boston-based HqO, where he served as the global head of enterprise partnerships. In his new role, Johnson will lead Franklin Street's growth initiatives across all business lines for the full-service commercial real estate and insurance brokerage.

“Jess joins us at the ideal time" with the firm being "ready to run,” said Andrew Wright, Franklin Street's CEO, in an emailed statement to CoStar News. Wright, who founded the company in 2006 prior to the Great Recession, described Franklin Street's national ambitions as an opportunity to invest “in the future leaders of our industry.”

Franklin Street provides a spectrum of commercial real estate services across its nine offices in the Southeast U.S. The company offers debt and financing, leasing, property management, and project/construction management services for all major asset classes.

That “balanced, synergistic platform” led to the company hiring 34 senior-level producers since 2022 when other firms were cutting or holding back, Wright said. “Over the past few years, not only have we not reduced our headcount or resources, but we have actually invested more into our people and platform.”

Over the past 10 years, the company has been involved in over $5.2 billion in sales, according to CoStar data.

While adding new producers across the company, Franklin Street has opened offices in Austin, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee, and Charlotte, North Carolina, said Kurt Keaton, Franklin Street’s president of real estate services, in a separate interview with CoStar News. Keaton explained that while Florida and Texas may get the lion’s share of media attention these days, the new offices add reach into the top six states experiencing growth and have already started to serve as a national springboard for the company.

“We want to be able to build all of our platform of businesses and products, types, and services for both occupier and investor clients across this Super Sun Belt region,” he said, adding that “we’re already doing deals all over the country [to] grow into a true national brand out of these markets.”

Keaton said Franklin Street expects to do “a lot” of business in Texas over the next three to five years, with the company setting its sights on a potential expansion to Dallas.

Keaton told CoStar News the firm will pursue more “nuanced” verticals, including healthcare, student housing and self-storage, that may “operate in a way that’s against the typical real estate cycle."

Franklin Street’s next immediate move is to expand its data and tech platforms, with its new hire, Johnson, taking the lead on that initiative. Johnson, who is based in Tampa, previously worked as global head of enterprise partnerships at HqO, a real estate technology company. He also previously held a series of positions with real estate firm Savills, most recently as executive vice president for its Knowledge Cubed real estate analytics platform for corporate real estate occupiers.

Johnson "brings the ability that he's had in his career of doing multiple businesses, multiple geographic markets, running global accounts from some of the global providers in our space,” said Keaton.