Hennessy Draws on Staubach Years to Shape Cassidy Turley NY Team

By Suzann D. Silverman, Editor-in-Chief

In Peter Hennessy’s opinion, the new Cassidy Turley offers an unprecedented opportunity to create a disciplined, driven and measurable environment—the kind of environment that can grow, be sustainable and help its members grow, too. That was the focus when he was president of The Staubach Co.’s New York region and that is what he envisions as the new president of Cassidy Turley’s New York Tri-State region.

“If you can measure it, you can improve it,” said the 20-year industry veteran, recalling the motto at Staubach. “It’s about transparency, accountability.”

Hennessy, who moved to Cassidy Turley from Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., where he was international director after the Jones Lang LaSalle-Staubach merger, joins tri-state region chairman Mark Boisi and executive vice chairman Richard Bernstein in leading what Hennessy termed a “good group of people” that just “need a little more focus and a little more discipline.” He is charged with tightening the relationships between the firm’s New York and New Jersey offices as Cassidy Turley gears up following its official launch as a new company on March 1 (for more on the launch, see CPE’s interview with CEO Mark Burkhardt in the August 2010 issue).

His own move came about, he said, because Jones Lang LaSalle had an “inordinately mature and developed business,” whereas the formation of Cassidy Turley offered him a once-in-a-lifetime chance to “do a lot of the things I enjoyed doing at Staubach.”

Hennessy plans to take the next 30 days to digest life at his new firm and determine how best to make improvements and measure success, but he said that of his top three initiatives, the one that is already clear-cut is recruitment of more talent. “There’s an opportunity in the marketplace for this firm,” he said, praising the private ownership structure as an attractive way to foster growth and make people accountable to each other.

Under Hennessy’s leadership, the Staubach New York region achieved compounded annual revenue growth of 22 percent over 10 years. He himself represented such clients as the state of New York, the National Football League, the city of New York, Guggenheim Partners, the School Construction Authority, Disney/ESPN, the National Hockey League, Texaco, Mobil Corp., Time Inc. and GE Capital.