NEW YORK CITY—Rob Speyer is assuming the role of sole CEO at Tishman Speyer, after sharing leadership duties with his father Jerry Speyer since 2008. The two co-CEOs made the announcement Monday morning in a letter to the firm's personnel worldwide.

Jerry Speyer will continue as chairman of the owner/developer, which operates office and multifamily properties in New York City and other gateway US cities as well as in Europe, South America and Asia, totaling nearly 100 million square worldwide. Since assuming the co-CEO role at the firm which he and Robert Tishman founded in 1978, Jerry Speyer has also served as chairman while Rob Speyer has served as president as well as co-CEO.

“This is a natural progression in the leadership of the firm and one that also reflects the reality of the way we have been running the business since becoming co-CEOs seven years ago,” Jerry Speyer and Rob Speyer wrote in their letter to Tishman Speyer personnel. “As leaders of a private enterprise, we strongly believe in the importance of actively shaping our own future. This means progressive change without losing the continuity of experience and management that is one of our key strengths.”

In recent months, Tishman Speyer has made acquisition bets in London and Los Angeles as well as in its backyard of New York City, where it recently announced plans to redevelop the Macy's store in Brooklyn into a mixed-use complex. “People have been talking about how technology was going to make cities irrelevant since the automobile was invented,” Rob Speyer said in a presentation at the Urban Land Institute's Fall Meeting in New York City this past October. “After the car, it was the telephone. After the telephone, television; and after television, the fax machine, teleconferencing and now, the Internet.  But what I'm seeing in major cities across the world is that the Internet is actually making them stronger and more critical to the future than ever.”

As a company, Jerry Speyer and Rob Speyer wrote Monday, “we have never had so many exciting possibilities around the world as we do today—with all the new challenges this also brings. We look forward to continuing to work with all of you to capitalize fully on these opportunities, bringing all our traditional strengths to bear while consistently seeking new, innovative ways to add value to our clients across the globe.”