REBNY Elects New Commercial Board Leaders
By Tobias Salinger December 5, 2014 3:37 pm
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The Real Estate Board of New York elected brokers from Massey Knakal Realty Services and Cushman & Wakefield (CWK) to lead the influential professional and advocacy organization’s commercial brokerage board of directors, REBNY announced today.
Massey Knakal partner James Nelson will lead the board, which meets monthly and oversees the activities of the various commercial brokerage committees within the decision, while Joanne Podell, a vice chairman at C&W, will act as vice chairman. Mr. Nelson’s chairmanship follows that of William Montana of Savills Studley, who led the board for five years.
“Serving as chairman for the last five years has been my privilege and a pleasure,” Mr. Montana said in a prepared statement. “We’ve grown the commercial brokerage division tremendously and accomplished so much through our many new initiatives. The creation of the [New York Commercial Professional] commercial education program was particularly gratifying. I am pleased to pass the baton on to James Nelson and Joanne Podell, and know that REBNY will be well served by such capable professionals.”
The principals from 271 commercial brokerage firms selected the board’s new officers, representatives for REBNY said. Robin Abrams of the Lansco Corporation, Shimon Shkury of Ariel Property Advisors, Matthew Van Buren of CBRE, and Mark Weiss of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank also won election as directors, REBNY officials said.
“We thank Bill Montana for his seven years of outstanding leadership and service as chairman and welcome James Nelson and Joanne Podell as the new chair and vice chair,” said REBNY President Steven Spinola in a prepared statement. “These top industry experts have brought invaluable experience and knowledge to our commercial board of directors and we congratulate them on being elected for these much-deserved leadership roles.”
