NEW YORK CITY—Arthur Mirante’s name was synonymous with Cushman & Wakefield. Until Wednesday, that is, when GlobeSt.com broke the news that the 20-year company veteran had relocated to Avison Young to head up that firm’s start-up New York City office.

Late Wednesday, C&W released the following statement: “Arthur was the CEO of Cushman & Wakefield for 20 years and subsequently became a broker. He is well respected within Cushman & Wakefield, and the commercial real estate industry. We congratulate him on this management appointment and wish him well on this new chapter in his career.”

Going beyond the statement, we interviewed Bruce Mosler, who took over the position of president and CEO after Mirante and who later teamed with his former boss in the firm's global brokerage initiative. Despite the change in the competitive landscape, Mosler was both philosophic and cordial:

“I look at Arthur as one of the most professional and talented people in the industry,” he said. “This is an opportunity for him to return to management and to help a company grow a business. And they couldn’t have picked a better man.”

Mosler admitted that he will miss the working comaradarie of “a close personal friend. I wish both Arthur and the company really well.”

But Mosler hasn’t taken his eye of the ball and says that his mantra is still the same: to grow the global brokerage business “and service the clients as best I can.”

Asked if he plans to fill the vacated chair, he laughed and said, “It’s a difficult question to answer at this point. I’ll continue to service the clients we have in the best fashion I can; it’s a continuation of what I’ve been doing for the past few years. . . which is taking market share for C&W, and I work with a lot of people within C&W to accomplish this.”