NEW YORK CITY—Commercial real estate veteran Eric Yarbro has joined Colliers International's offices here as executive managing director.

Yarbro, who has 27 years experience in commercial real estate, was most recently SVP with CBRE where he arranged more than $500 million in real estate transactions. Yarbro will continue to represent a broad spectrum of clients focused on urban markets including institutional owners and corporations, landlords, developers, government agencies, and not-for-profits nationwide. 

Yarbro also will be responsible for developing and growing a robust urban strategy, and promoting both diversity awareness and inclusion within the corporate client community and Colliers International. He will be focused on increasing directly related business opportunities, talent development, and supplier diversity in commercial real estate and construction-related activities.

Through his interests with Madison Square Realty—a full-service, certified minority business enterprise and Diversity Marketplace, a web-based platform comprised of a community of MWBVE entities—Yarbro will be able to offer Colliers International's clients the ability to receive MBE procurement credits for real estate expenditures.

Major clients Yarbro has worked with include General Motors, AOL, Eastman Kodak, Prudential Financial, Fifth Third Bank, Western Union, Teachers Village, and Servcorp, among others.

“Entrepreneurial in his outlook, Eric is an expert deal-maker and collaborative specialist who is valued by his clients for his innovation, integrity, and ability to successfully plan, execute, and manage short- and long-term strategies across a wide and complex range of real estate requirements,” says Joseph Harbert, president of Colliers International's eastern region. “Eric also elevates those around him both through his daily interactions with clients and colleagues and his active role in advancing opportunities for minorities.”

Yarbro received CBRE's client service award and the Multi-Platinum Producer Award on numerous occasions; was founder of the Hurricane Sandy Diverse Response team in 2013; and was included among the 100 most influential blacks in corporate America in Savoy Magazine's 2010, 2012, and 2014 annual features.

He also served as a brokerage professor and as a member of the NY Chapter Advisory Board of the Real Estate Associate Program (REAP) from 2006-2014, during which time he helped to graduate more than 200 minority and women students aspiring to enter the real estate industry. In 2014 he was voted into the REAP National Board. In 2004 he founded and co-chaired CBRE's African American Network Group.