Clelia Peters was just named president of Warburg Realty, two years after joining the brokerage as a consultant, The Real Deal has learned. Her father, Frederick Peters, will remain at the helm of the company as CEO.
The appointment follows a major shake-up at the nearly 120-year-old firm that saw a complete recalibration of the management team and defections by several high-profile agents.
Frederick will continue to be involved in the day-to-day brokerage operations, while Clelia will oversee marketing, technology and overall corporate strategy, including establishing new relationships with brokerage partners nationally and internationally.
“It seemed to make a lot of sense to create positions for each of us which outline our particular skill sets,” Frederick said of the decision to appoint his daughter president. “I am at heart a broker who somehow ended up running a real estate company. She is really trained in the intricacies of business and she’s also by inclination a real innovator. She thinks extremely creatively about the future.”
A graduate of Yale and Columbia, Clelia worked for four years at Boston Consulting Group and spent a year working on a startup with Wall Street veteran Sallie Krawcheck before joining Warburg as a consultant in 2013. At BCG, her specialties included “change management,” she said.
Shortly after she came on board-full time at Warburg as director of strategy, the brokerage went through a complete overhaul of the management team.
Several top executives departed, including sales directors Robert Doernberg and Jane Bayard, and Michael Guerra, a Douglas Elliman veteran who was recruited last April to lead Warburg’s push into Brooklyn. Richard Steinberg, a top producer at the firm, also left last year. New hires included Jasmine Takanikos, a marketing consultant focused on brand marketing for agents, and Beth McBride, previously at Rubenstein Associates.
“We had a great team when I arrived but they weren’t necessarily the team that was the right fit in terms of growing into the future,” Clelia told TRD on Tuesday. “It was both a tumultuous time in the industry and a time of transition within the company. It was probably a higher anxiety period than the company was used to.”
Clelia’s new title was announced to agents in a company-wide meeting Tuesday. Kevelyn Guzman, formerly the company’s director of operations, will now be COO.