This feature presents a weekly rundown of recent significant management and board changes and personnel moves in the North American real estate industry, including U.S. real estate investment trusts and real estate operating companies, homebuilders and gaming operators.
C-suite changes
* GTJ REIT Inc. CFO and treasurer Ben Zimmerman resigned. Stuart Blau will assume Zimmerman's positions. Blau is a managing partner at Kimmel Blau & Goldman LLP and a partner at Berlin & Blau attorneys at law.
* Empire Resorts Inc. CFO Laurette Pitts will resign from the company effective Dec. 4.
* Senior vice president and general counsel of Essex Property Trust Inc. Jordan Ritter will retire Jan. 12, 2018. Deborah Jones, senior vice president of human resources of the company, will oversee the search for Ritter's replacement.
Board shuffle
* CBRE Group Inc. added Sanjiv Yajnik, president of Capital One Financial Services, to its board. Yajnik holds multiple executive level positions at Capital One NA.
Other
* CBRE also appointed Kyle Schoppmann to executive managing director and market leader for the company's greater Washington, D.C., and Baltimore region, effective Jan 1, 2018. Schoppmann is currently Manhattan, N.Y., market leader and head of occupier services for the New York tristate region.
* Thomas Wierdsma, senior vice president, project development at GEO Group Inc., will retire Dec. 31 and will be replaced by Kent Long. Long previously worked for Balfour Beatty Construction and most recently was senior vice president of the South Florida region.
Wierdsma will continue working as a consultant for the company from Jan. 2, 2018, to Jan. 2, 2020.
