As a member of JLL's real estate investment banking group, Christensen specialized in real estate lending and mortgage brokerage. He has been involved in billions of dollars of transactions in his 25-year career and is currently active with NAIOP, Urban Land Institute and the California Mortgage Brokers Assoc.

Christensen tells GlobeSt.com he left JLL in January and for the past several months has been working on direct transactions for hotel investors, including discounted note purchases, something he will be doing for G&E clients as well. He says he was attracted to G&E's "strong appetite and desire to gain market share" and the fact that it has an integrated platform that will help it succeed.

With G&E, Christensen says that among other things he will be assisting investment clients who are looking to be more strategic, who want to go after specific assets, such as a class B office building in a specific submarket, as opposed to larger portfolio transactions. "On the other side I will be assisting the investment sale and leasing teams in getting a firm understanding, when working on the tenant rep side, as to what the current debt structure is on a building, whether or not they should be dealing with the owner or the lender," he says.

In addition, Christensen says he will be assisting building owners with how to engage lenders to the best possible result. "There are a variety of things that can happen," he says. "Investors have got to protect their equity positions."