Finance Aces Rob Borden, Heather Brown Join CBRE; Brown Named to Lead NE Debt Unit

BOSTON—CBRE continues to add a roster of top CRE talent to its expanding Consulting Group here following the firm’s landscape-changing 2018 union with Transwestern’s regional office, the latest arrivals being leverage experts Heather Brown and Rob Borden, seasoned veterans most recently at JLL where they transacted over $1.5 billion in financings and $2.5 billion of asset sales in less than five years.

In a statement provided Real Reporter, CBRE explains Brown will lead its New England Debt & Structured Finance team in close partnership with the investment sales division, “further strengthening the firm’s Capital Markets service line” following this autumn’s hiring of the five-member Scott Dragos/Douglas Jacoby CRE sales contingent that united with CBRE/Transwestern Capital Markets professionals including Christopher Skeffington.

Borden, who spent time in Europe as an international debt and finance specialist prior to joining JLL, brings 13 years to his new position, with investment sales duties also part of his repertoire. “We are thrilled to have the Brown-Borden team join our Consulting Group,” CBRE New England President Andy Hoar declares in the prepared statement, adding, “Their market expertise, reputation and ‘client first’ work ethic make them a natural fit into our Consulting Group nature.”

Brown’s impressive resume stretches back 18 years originating, structuring and negotiating debt financing throughout the country, the tally now eclipsing $7.0 billion in combined deal volume. Prior to joining JLL Boston in summer 2014 to lead its debt team with colleague Jonathan Schneider, Brown was in New York City overseeing institutional investments for GE Capital Real Estate, her territory primarily the Northeast. “Joining the world-class platform of CBRE is the perfect next phase and challenge for my capital markets practice,” observes Brown.

Besides helping clients navigate the complicated realm of leveraging CRE and financial structuring for a broad variety of asset classes, CBRE officials say Brown and Borden “will further extend the Boston Consulting Group’s collaborative culture,” assisting on a suite of advisory services such as workplace strategy, financial analytics, branding/identity and labor analytics, plus lease accounting, administration and auditing guidance.

Touted as the world’s largest CRE investment and services firm (based on 2017 revenue), Los Angeles-based CBRE Group Inc. has more than 80,000 employees via 450 offices globally, excluding affiliates. Its array of services from appraisal, development, leasing, mortgage, project and property management and sales is available throughout New England where Brown and Borden will be concentrating their efforts. “Those are really good hires,” one market watcher says of the latest arrivals while maintaining that “CBRE has done really well” in the ongoing talent sweepstakes where metropolitan Boston’s CRE landscape continues to evolve.

Robert Borden

Heather Brown