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"My time at Andersen gave me important skills in dealing with global organizations, and managing large groups of people in multiple offices, which is the way the corporate services group is organized at Grubb & Ellis," Stoner tells GlobeSt.com. "I'm not a broker, but I've done a lot of consulting work for corporate clients."

Stoner, 44, joined FPL Associates as managing director after the demise of Andersen. Chicago-based FPL does real estate executive search and compensation consulting. Stoner's base of clients there was fairly broad, including corporations, real estate operating companies and institutional investors.

"I brought people from Andersen with me to set up [FPL's] management consulting group," Stoner recalls. "It was a great platform on which to do that, since FPL is a brand name in the industry."

Stoner notes that the sort of work he will be doing at his new job will be quite different from that at FPL. "At FPL, we were focused on owners of real estate--REITs and investment managers," he says. "At Grubb & Ellis, we'll be focused more on corporate occupiers of space. So there will be very little overlap between the old and the new positions.

"What [Grubb & Ellis] was looking for was someone to step into the existing practice and expand it," he continues. "Not only the number of clients, but the services offered, such as real estate strategic planning, site selection and how to set up and run a corporate real estate organization within a large company. Those are all things our corporate clients are struggling with."

Stoner will be based at the company's headquarters in this northern suburb of Chicago. He holds a bachelor's degree from Boston University and a master's from Indiana University, and is the only two-time winner of the Apgar award, presented by CoreNet Global (formerly the International Association of Corporate Real Estate Executives) for published corporate real estate research.

Instant Insights /

GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: Steve Stoner Joins Grubb & Ellis

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