Churn at the top in Cushman & Wakefield

Sources said the merger between Cushman & Wakefield and DTZ was also responsible for the churn

Four top executives have recently quit the Indian unit of US- based property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield, said a source. These are Ravi Ahuja, m·anaging director, office agency & investment sales; Harleen Oberoi, executive director, project management; Akshay Lakhanpal, director, project management, and Rajeev Kumar, director, design and build.

According to sources, Ahuja has joined Cushman's rival, Colliers International. Lakhanpal has joined Space Matrix and Oberoi the construction arm of Brookfield. Kumar is reportedly taking a sabbatical. Contact could not be made with any of these executives.

Anshul Jain, managing director of Cushman & Wakefield, said all this was part of the normal churn in the sector. He added they’d hired an entire team from a rival consultancy to replace Ahuja. The team will join in four to six weeks.

Cushman has also hired Manish Goel from JLL, who has replaced Oberoi. Jain added they were getting someone in Lakhanpal's place. Ramita Arora from JLL had already replaced Rahul Arora, who was a director at Cushman.

“The industry is small and the talent pool is limited. This churning happens once in three years,” Jain said. Though the churn came after its previous managing director, Sanjay Dutt, joined the Indian arm of Singapore-based Ascendas, Jain denied any connection between the events. Sectoral sources said the merger between Cushman & Wakefield and DTZ was also responsible for the churn. However, Jain said it had very little impact.

He said they were looking at adding 200-250 employees next year. Currently, they employ 3,000 people.