Thalhimer succession: Robison in as president, Warfield remains CEO

Thalhimer’s headquarters is on West Broad Street in Short Pump. (BizSense file photo)

Richmond’s biggest commercial real estate brokerage has taken a big step in its ongoing leadership succession plan.

Thalhimer last week hoisted Eric Robison into the role of president, a title he takes from longtime leader Lee Warfield, who continues as chief executive officer.

Warfield had held the dual CEO-and-president role for nearly a decade and said relinquishing the latter to Robison is part of a gradual, years-in-the-making plan for the 530-person firm.

“We don’t believe in rushing things,” Warfield said. “A well-planned, thoughtful transition is healthy for the company and healthy for the individuals involved. We have a history of doing it that way.”

Eric Robison

Robison, 50, adds the president title to his ongoing list of duties of running Thalhimer’s capital markets group and its Richmond brokerage team. He said the new job will add responsibilities such as working more closely with the heads of Thalhimer’s various departments and taking more of a lead in business development and client retention.

Despite the increased executive tasks, he’ll continue to broker investment sales, primarily for office and industrial properties, as he’s done since his earliest days at the firm 21 years ago.

A native of Yorktown, Robison spent his high school years in San Diego before coming back east to attend Virginia Tech.

Coming out of college he said he initially tried to get in on the tech boom of the early 2000s, before familial friends helped steer him toward commercial real estate.

He decided to try to break into the industry in Virginia where he had some connections and landed on Richmond as the place to take his first shot.

“It took a lot of phone calls but there were some really great people in the industry that took my cold calls,” Robison said. “There were some people like Mark Hourigan… he didn’t know me at all, but I called him up at 29 years old and he gave me a list of industry contacts and put in a good word for me.”

One of those contacts was veteran Thalhimer broker Jeff Cooke, who was the company’s sales manager at the time.

“(Cooke) was good enough to take my call but not good enough to interview me until after four or five calls, which I found out was a test,” Robison recalled. “You have to be persistent.”

He joined Thalhimer in 2004 and hasn’t looked back.

“It was a great time in the market – that runup from 2004 to the dip in 2009-2010,” Robison said. “It was super exciting… I knew right away the business was something I was interested in.”

He’s since seen the ups and downs of economic cycles, all of which have informed his views as he takes on this new role.

“All of those things created some disruptions that translated to a number of opportunities for our clients…and challenges,” he said. “Speaking of Jeff Cooke, one of the first things he told me was, on the brokerage side, you really don’t make money when things are stagnant.”

Warfield, meanwhile, despite relinquishing one of his roles, said he has no immediate plans to leave the firm. In addition to being CEO, he’ll also continue as chairman of the company’s board of directors.

“I’m still here and I still love what I’m doing,” he said.

At age 61, Warfield admits he has mixed emotions about the change but said it’s not in the company’s best interest to have a leader who holds on for too long.

Lee Warfield

“To get to this day of giving up part of my role is tough,” he said. “But it’s the right thing and it’s what I want to do. I see companies that don’t do it and all of a sudden there’s some abrupt change that people don’t quite understand or didn’t see coming.”

Looking ahead, Warfield said there’s plenty for he, Robison and the rest of the company to focus on, including growing its property management division and development arm, and not losing momentum of the biggest part of its business – being the largest commercial real estate brokerage in the state.

“We are at our core a brokerage and we want to maintain our market leading edge in that business in Virginia. You cannot be complacent. It takes constant work. We never sleep on that,” he said.

As for the next step of Thalhimer’s succession – an eventual change in the CEO seat – Warfield said there’s no set timeframe for that to occur.

“As long as I enjoy what I’m doing and am still effective in doing it, things will stay as they are,” he said. “But this is clearly a signal that we’re moving in that direction. I don’t intend to work forever.”

Warfield said that eventual change at the top spot would likely follow a similar patient approach that landed him in the dual president-CEO role. He’s been with Thalhimer for 29 years and took over as president 11 years ago and had to wait another five years before being named CEO in 2016, replacing Paul Silver.

He said that gradual process has served the company well.

“It’s not slamming everything on you at one time; it’s little pieces over time to prove you’ve got the capability. And that’s what Eric has done,” he said. “It’s his time.”