Kelli Carhart,
CBRE
After spending 17 years at Freddie Mac, serving as vice president of multifamily production and sales, Kelli Carhart decided the time was right to move to a new role and learn more about other lending sources in the multifamily industry.
It came during a season of changes for her—getting married, having a child, and the pandemic—as well as at a time when Freddie Mac had seen some leadership moves.
“It was a ripe opportunity to transition myself,” she says.
In January 2021, she joined CBRE and most recently had served as head of multifamily production.
Her move paid off. Two years later, she was tapped to become executive managing director and leader of CBRE’s Multifamily Capital Markets platform, which combines investment sales and financing as well as brings the investment banking into a single, fully integrated service offering. In this role, Carhart also oversees the continued national expansion of CBRE’s multifamily business across five regions, guiding leaders in each geography.
While her bread and butter has been on the debt side, she says there has been a bit of a learning curve to bridge the gap between debt and sales, and she’s striving to integrate those better.
“I want to make sure we’re thinking about how we can add value to our clients and approach them strategically as a platform,” she says.
Carhart also is prioritizing her team and clients to continue to grow CBRE’s business.
“Nothing beats face-to-face interaction, and that’s always emerging for both parties,” she says. “It’s important to be in front of clients and the team that you are leading because you learn things that you wouldn’t obtain virtually.”
Just a couple of months into her new role, Carhart has a lot of goals that she’s focused on, including technology deliverables and transparency.
“People want real-time data, and we need to have avenues to provide that to our clients. Having an efficient avenue to deliver information is one of my focuses,” she says. “I’m also really focused on communication and transparency. I want to equip the team with having information—research, data, and marketing materials—and being able to deliver that to the clients.”
