CBRE has placed a hotel finance anchor on the West Coast with the addition of Cara Leonard to the CBRE Hotels' debt and structure finance team. Leonard, who will be based in the firm's Beverly Hills office as SVP, brings the national hotel debt and structure finance team to four members, and will help to provide the full spectrum of client services. We sat down with Leonard to talk about her new position and the expansion of the platform in this exclusive interview.

GlobeSt.com: Tell me about your new position at CBRE, and why the firm has expanded the hotel debt and structured finance team to the West Coast.

Cara Leonard: We have a very strong investment sales platform on the West Coast and a very strong structured finance team with Mark Owens in New York, Jonathan Rice in Atlanta and Mark Sallette in Houston, but before I joined the platform, we didn't really have any ability to service the West Coast and West Coast-based assets. I am definitely filling a void on the debt and structured finance team that I think will allow us to provide better services to our entire client base.