Christina Bicks.
Christina Bicks, 29
Assistant Director at Savills
It was almost by chance Christina Bicks ended up in real estate.
Bicks was headed down a path in finance, landing internships at UBS and BMO Bank of Montreal, while studying at Middlebury College in Vermont, when she stumbled upon a job listing for Savills.
“I had no exposure to the real estate world; I didn’t know much about how the industry worked at all,” she said. “After a few conversations with [Savills], I was just really interested in what they do and how many different areas of the real estate industry they touch on a daily basis, and was really excited about the opportunity to have a pretty direct impact on New York City.”
It took Bicks “a while to get my feet under me” but she developed a “taste” for the industry and has never let up. She’s been with Savills for six years, and now works under Allyson Bowen and Howard Notthingham; and is responsible for market research, strategic analysis and lease deals.
She worked on Mediaocean’s 51,000-square-foot relocation to 120 Broadway in 2019, where she helped identify off-market space to help Mediaocean save nearly $28 million on its offices.
“We got them out of their existing obligation at 620 Avenue of the Americas, where they had too much space to begin with, right-sized them and moved them to a more cost-effective location,” Bicks said. “There were a lot of moving pieces … [but] it was really a combination of all these things falling into place at the right time and having our hand in orchestrating it.”
She also represented nonprofit JDRF when it relocated its headquarters to 40,000 square feet in Brookfield Place in 2018. Bicks and her team scoured New York City and New Jersey, looking for the right space in the right spot.
Bicks was born in New York, grew up in Ridgewood, N.J., but always had the goal to return to the city. She currently lives on the Upper East Side and spends her free time playing tennis and otherwise staying active.—N.R.
