After helping bring Charleston, S.C.–based Greystar to the forefront of the property management industry, Jeremy Edmiston decided to take on a new challenge with another of the sector's leading companies.

Edmiston, 39, left Greystar and joined Pinnacle in June of last year and has been settling in to make waves as the Dallas-based company’s vice president of client services ever since.

Although he was a key player in helping Greystar, manager of more than 200,000 apartment units nationwide, become one of the most prominent leaders in the multifamily industry, Edmiston isn’t focusing on size with Pinnacle.

“Our paramount goal is not to be the largest multifamily provider in the country, but to be the best,” he says.

Edmiston says he saw the opportunity with Pinnacle as a chance to grow and tackle areas of business he hadn’t been directly involved in before.

After joining Greystar in 2003 as an operations analyst, Edmiston moved up to become a senior director, eventually holding responsibilities for business development and client-relationship development. His new position at Pinnacle allows him to assume a larger leadership role as he oversees the firm's client services group, which includes business intelligence, research, corporate marketing, and public relations.

“It’s an expanded role,” he says. “I have much more responsibility in leading a team and growing that team.”

While he’s still learning to mesh with his new team of co-workers, Edmiston says the two companies have similar cultures and that his past business relationships remain.

“I think there’s mutual admiration and respect for one another when you’re talking about the top five providers in the country,” he says.

Edmiston says he's come a long way from his start in the business 14 years ago, with Alpha-Barnes Real Estate in Dallas.

“That’s how I learned the business,” he recalls.

Being mentored by Art Barnes, a principal with Alpha-Barnes, taught Edmiston lessons about business that will travel with him wherever he works, he says.

“I learned just to have genuine care for people and not to be concerned, necessarily, if I do or do not get a dollar of business from them.”