Tom D’Arcy knew Grubb & Ellis Co. even before he came on board in November 2009. Then again, who wouldn’t? It’s hard not to be familiar with one of the giants of commercial real estate — especially after you’ve been in the industry 28 years.
“The biggest challenge has just been getting my arms around the company itself,” says D’Arcy, the new president, CEO and director. “I understand the industry, but getting to understand our company — its culture, the information flow, the nuances of the company itself — I’m not there yet.”
When the board approached D’Arcy, he began a prudent due diligence of the company, which involved meeting with key employees, clients and investors to learn what he was getting into.
“What I found was what I expected to find: a strong brand, a broad platform — we have 120 offices spread around the country, 6,000 employees — multiple lines of business, diversity of revenue,” he says. “What I saw was a company that clearly had a lot of resources available, a lot of scale, a lot of scope.”
Now, his challenge is just what to do with all of those resources to take advantage of the growth potential.
D’Arcy continues to get more acquainted with the internal workings of the company’s three main segments: transaction, which includes brokerage leasing and purchase of buildings; investment management of public nontraded REITs; and management services. Then, he combines that knowledge with external barometers of what’s happening in the broader marketplace. The goal is driving the company forward in a way that represents the needs and desires of all constituents.
Basically, D’Arcy has to match the company’s capabilities with opportunities in the marketplace, aligning its capacity with demand for services.
“You can’t just chase every opportunity,” D’Arcy says. “You have to focus in on the highest value opportunities you have as a company. For a company like ours, where we’re so diverse and we have so many resources and such scale, there’s many businesses that we could enter, all which need to make sense. But you really have to try to maintain a focus and focus on those areas that are fully complementary to the core.”
