2022 AVISON YOUNG U.S. AWARDS
As a people-centric, collaborative organization, our collective success is driven by the thousands of individuals who call Avison Young home. Our people embrace curiosity, foster creativity, and promote agile thinking. They leverage relationships, technology, strategic mindsets, and diverse experiences as the tools for success. At the end of the day, our people are the key to success at AY. While we’re thankful for our people on the daily, our annual Avison Young Awards program gives us the platform to highlight our top talent who are delivering the best value for our clients, harnessing our collective intelligence, and making AY better day by day. Here’s to our 2022 Avison Young U.S. Award winners – congratulations to you.
Managing Director
of the Year Award
Warren Smith
Principal and Managing Director | Nashville, TN
Warren joined AY initially in 2015 when the former C&W Cornerstone office switched its affiliation from Cushman and Wakefield to Avison Young. As the CEO of C&W Cornerstone, he was instrumental in bringing the team to AY. After four years as an affiliate office, Avison Young acquired the affiliate in April 2019 with Warren as the MD of the office. In the past four years under Warren’s leadership, the Nashville office has had great success as part of the AY platform. The team is fully engaged with winning business - they partner with a number of other AY offices, lean into our professional services team, and utilize our AVANT technology and tools, resulting in substantial growth of the Nashville office.
Managing Director of the Year Award
Circle of Excellence
Bill Ehret
Managing Director, Principal
Indianapolis, IN
David Genovese
Managing Director, Principal
Phoenix, AZ
David Jewkes
Managing Director, Principal
Las Vegas, NV
Tate Krosschell
Managing Director, Principal
Minneapolis, MN
Josh Peyton
Managing Director, Principal
Washington, DC
Chris Skibinski
Managing Director, Principal
Charlotte, NC
Above and Beyond Service Line Award
Jadwiga Badzinska
Payroll Manager | Chicago, IL
Jadwiga is highly skilled of anything that comes her way. She has successfully integrated two acquisitions, largely while her only other payroll employee was on maternity leave this year. She always goes above and beyond, and there is never any errors in a complicated company with many different payrolls and payroll codes. She works long and late hours and is always willing to take that one last update after the deadline passes. Avison Young is incredibly lucky to have her. Without her expertise, the onboarding and payroll run of Studio Eagle or Madison Marquette wouldn’t have been successful.
Above and Beyond Award
Circle of Excellence
Julian Adams
Sabin Bista
John Burczyk
Angelita Del Bosque
Erik Dierdorff
David Keltonic
Michelle LaPointe
Michael Lee
Michael Lyvers
Ashleigh Mavros
Judy Medina
Nina Mizushima
Brittany Ott
Erin Potts
Scott Trump
* Honored posthumously
People Manager of the Year Award
Phoebe Scott
Global Director, CRM | Chicago, IL
Phoebe is a strong leader whose personality and management style aligns naturally with many of AY's cultural behaviors. This past year, her focus has been on finding the right mix of people to strengthen the team as a whole. She has built a strong CRM team who can openly collaborate, focus on their best qualities, and deliver consistently without a negative impact to their work-life balance. Much of that stems from Phoebe's focus on listening and finding what motivates each member of her team. She encourages continuous learning so the team members can find their own individual passions, and then supports the movement into other career paths. It is very evident that Phoebe's approach to people management is important to her - and has inspired many of us to follow her example. Although Phoebe and her team may be small in numbers, her leadership has allowed us to deliver solutions with maximum impact to the business.
Sean Faught Emerging Talent Award - U.S.
Alex Marolda
Associate Director| New York, NY
For the last three years, Alex has been an invaluable member of the Tri-State Investment Sales Team and AY. Coming in with a managing agent background, she added value on day one with a work ethic and attention to detail that goes unmatched. She is selfless in her efforts and has gone above and beyond to serve our company, community, and our clients. In 2022 she was selected as the NYC Emerging Leaders Office Ambassador, organized our Annual Day of Giving event, and helped launch the AY New York Women’s Group. She’s been a major contributor, helping close 25 sales for $331 million in consideration and nearly $5.5 million of revenue. Alex is always finding ways we can improve our operational systems and mentor others on the team – there is no way that we could handle our pipeline without her active involvement.
Rookie of the Year Award
Abby Rights
Vice President, Industrial | Charlotte, NC
Abby is a gold standard for new brokers joining our team. Initially she made herself invaluable by being an excellent partner on deals, routinely handling difficult, delegated tasks with ease as she learned the business. She quickly differentiated herself by sourcing several new, sizable opportunities. Abby has earned the nickname the “velvet hammer” by some in her office - she’s tough and persuasive but in a softer way that is disarming. Her relentless organization and calling program set her apart from most brokers new to the industry.
Business Development Award
Alex Ern
Mid-Atlantic Regional Manager, Insight & Innovation | Washington, DC
Alex is directly involved as a strategic data analytics resource in 35 client projects, including tenant rep leasing, agency leasing, capital markets and AVANT consulting projects across office, retail, healthcare and residential property types. His deep level of involvement is rare and emblematic of how I&I leaders will establish themselves from a sales enablement perspective in 2023. Alex has become a one-stop shop for all Mid-Atlantic leasing brokerage, capital markets, and AVANT Consulting solutions, simplifying communications between various members of the AVANT team such as product, data science, data analytics and data, and other AY stakeholders. His wins have totaled $2.1 million in revenue, with more than double that revenue in his pipeline. Additionally, he has selflessly established himself as a mentor for the I&I team's Emerging Talent throughout the U.S., a testament to his strong cultural fit as a leader of the I&I team.
Client Care and Delivery Award - External
Justin Dziama
Principal, Office Leasing, Retail, Sales & Leasing | Boston, MA
Justin's relationship development with RMR and the extraordinary efforts he has gone through on behalf of RMR that have led to much collaboration around the country make him deserving of the Client Care & Delivery award. Justin was initially hired as a leasing agent to help The RMR Group with a B-class office building in Boston's redeveloping North Station market, and has since developed a strong relationship with the RMR team, which has led to collaboration across the U.S., engaging team members in various markets when opportunities are presented and are a good fit. Due to their close relationship, RMR wants to position Justin to establish Avison Young as RMR's exclusive partner for office leasing in the U.S.
Client Care and Delivery Award - Internal
Shelley Wyka
Director, Human Resources – U.S. | Chicago, IL
It's very clear day-in and day-out that Shelley truly loves what she does. Peers and colleagues can plainly see her drive, passion, and love for customer care and client satisfaction. Shelley always is available to answer any HR or Avison Young question with accuracy and professionalism, but also can make an individual feel as though they are the only person(s) Shelley is assisting. Shelley has been a lead point person on the Engagedly implementation for Avison Young, leading multiple weekly meetings to ensure the entire Engagedly team is up-to-date with new developments and helps keep the "needle" moving forward to meet all crucial deadlines and deliverables. Shelley was also very important in the Madison Marquette acquisition in that she lead the implementation HR team in successfully transitioning 270+ employees from Madison Marquette to AY and ensured they all had the appropriate information and were setup with the AY systems prior to them starting in October 2022.
Innovation in Action Award
Craig Leibowitz
Director, Innovation and Insight Advisory, U.S. | New York, NY
Craig's development of the Vitality Index reflects the vision and work required to achieve an outcome that truly qualifies as an innovation. The impact of the index is most acutely felt in national media, where the Vitality Index has singularly earned recognition and media placements for Avison Young that outpace competitors much larger. The 2022 award from FastCompany as the #1 Most Innovative Company in Urban Planning is a monumental recognition of the innovative core within the Vitality Index. Our competitors were not even listed. The fact that we made a version of the Vitality Index public and allowed users to generate findings autonomously is a significant move toward a value creation for clients/guests that we will no doubt learn from and build upon. It is not common to see data interactivity handed over to the user, but it is a powerful idea and we did it.
Collaboration Award
INOVA
INOVA has been a meaningful client for Avison Young since early 2012 when AY acquired RMC and established a significant property management platform in the Mid-Atlantic region. Over the last decade, our professional team has expanded the services we delivered to INOVA while navigating its leadership changes and mastering unique challenges of advising a healthcare organization with 24/7 operational needs during a pandemic. We attribute the success we had in 2022 to managing the INOVA account across all service lines through leadership, constant collaboration, teamwork, and best-in-class service. With the INOVA team working as a cohesive unit, our competitors have been unable to penetrate our client relationships. Unswerving client care and relationship management have been key to our service line expansion -- including multiple lease transactions and complex land sales -- and key to INOVA becoming the top REMS client that it remains today.
Cheryl Beatty
HR Coordinator
Rockville, MD
Peter Berk
Principal
Tysons, VA
Wesley Boatwright
Principal
Washington, DC
Connor Burke
Associate
Washington, DC
Shawn Goldstein
Vice President
Rockville, MD
Nick Gregorios
Principal
Tysons, VA
Claudia Hernandez
Project Accountant
Rockville, MD
Donna Kay
Principal
Rockville, MD
Dave Millard
Principal
Tysons, VA
Maribel Moran
Property Manager
Rockville, MD
Grace Potter
Tenant Services Coordinator
Rockville, MD
Wesley Preuss
Senior Vice President
Tysons, VA
Gillian Richmond
Associate
Tysons, VA
Lee Zampella
Marketing Manager
Tysons, VA
Real Estate Management Services Leadership Award
Karnis Wong
Senior Vice President | Los Angeles, CA
Karnis is the "rock and glue" of the Southern California Real Estate Management Team. She is constantly leading the management team in training both management and administrative staff. All the staff, including her peers, can rely on Karnis to assist them with answers to any of their questions and help them with support when there are staffing shortages. During 2022, she not only did her job as a regional leader, she also filled in as temporary General Manager for numerous projects throughout Southern California. She has a great selfless demeanor and always approaches challenges with a positive perspective. Karnis is our client executive for our largest account, Manulife Investment, where she offers strategy, advice and oversight to the entire team. She interacts directly with the asset manager, the financial manager, and the head of the west for Manulife Investment. Time after time, her tireless efforts and diligence have resulted in successful outcomes and value driven solutions. Her leadership has resulted in Manulife adding another 900,000 square foot project to our management portfolio this month. To say that Karnis Wong is a valued asset for Avison Young is an extreme understatement. Karnis embodies the culture and lives the values of what Avison Young is today.
Real Estate Management Services Team Member Award
Al Waltz
Chief Engineer | Atlanta, GA
Al Waltz is a key member of our Atlanta/South Carolina Real Estate Management Team. Al has over 30 years of engineering experience and is treasured as a valued asset to Avison Young. Al remains passionate about serving our clients and providing actionable steps to achieving success throughout our department. Al is responsible for leading engineers, creating a culture of intelligent excellence, and providing guidance to clients, team members, and employees. Avison Young continues to expand its footprint across regions and embrace clients with its resources, technology, and commitment to excellence - Al Waltz is a great example of exuding excellent client relations, exhibiting operational knowledge of building systems, and expanding our services for the greater good of the company.
Project Management, Construction Management & Consulting Award
Nicole Young
Project Manager | Oakland, CA
Nicole has been instrumental in winning several key accounts with her attention to detail, ability to create client requested “Custom Dashboards” in SmartSheets, and her project scheduling and budget tracking that is second to none. Her can-do attitude to assist our local project managers and national project managers is infectious and she continues to always bring her A-Game for AY and clients. Nicole is what we would call a strategic employee who will rise through the ranks and one day lead a market. Nicole has demonstrated to all at AY and her clients that she embodies the core values and culture AY wants for our key employees.
Global awards
Join us in congratulating our team members across the world who showed us excellence over the past year.