C&W chief Arthur Mirante II: 'the captain in the wheelhouse'

Real Estate Weekly, August 22, 2001 by Parke Chapman

Arthur Mirante II is the first Cushman & Wakefield CEO not to have risen through the ranks as a broker. He began working for the firm as a lawyer, back in the 1970s, in the days when the parent company was RCA.

Since then he has witnessed the firm's transition from a sales to a service organization, and witnessed is an understatement. He is in many respects the architect of that transformation.

On a recent Tuesday morning, Mirante discussed his real estate career, among other things, amidst his sprawling West 52nd Street office.

He is a natural storyteller, quick with telling anecdotes and comic asides. He doesn't spin yarns so much as shape them into coherent summaries, suggesting his legal bent.

He never appears to take himself too seriously, atypical of the CEO commanding the world's largest real estate services firm with 11,000 employees in 49 countries. He's been doing this since 1984.

Despite that stature, there's little swagger to the man, though his vigor is apparent.

Back in the 1970s, Arthur Mirante was decked out in "high heel boots, a Pierre Cardin suit and long hair," he freely admits, in the fashion of the day. Mirante is now the clean-cut CEO who wears a conservative suit and a trimmed moustache.

He grew up in Hoboken, the son of a refrigeration mechanic.

He attended Holy Cross on a football scholarship (as a running back) and went to the law school at St. John's University out of college, graduating in 1968.

By his own admission, these two spans--one as an athlete, the other as an attorney--shaped his character in fundamental ways. Nerves would not be a problem, thanks to his football experience, and he would always adhere to a code in the manner of attorneys in the manner of attorneys practicing the law.

But unlike those attorneys, Mirante would go on to codify his own set of values.

"I always had these high ideals about the legal profession. This was around the time of Watergate, remember," he said.

Though Mirante worked as a corporate attorney with "high ideals", he began to feel that others in the profession were not adhering to these principals.

In 1979, Mirante called his father in New Jersey to share some good news.

He had accepted a position with Cushman & Wakefield's property management business. The promotion meant a departure from the legal profession that he had studied to practice.

His father was shocked.

He said, 'Son, I'm really disappointed in you. Those people are salesmen, they exaggerate, you know what they are like,"' said Arthur Mirante II.

"So now I'm wondering if my pop was right. What kind of business did I get myself into?" said Mirante, laughing.

"I learned very quickly that in this brokerage world, known for its chicanery, that there is as much ethics in this business as there is in the legal profession," he said.

Granted, Mirante introduced his own brand of integrity into the mix, and now he carries that mission statement on a card in his wallet. It's called the Cushman & Wakefield Statement, and it features eight attributes of a Cushman & Wakefield employee. Certain words are written in large red type--CLIENTS, INTEGRITY, EXCELLENCE, RESPECT, and PROFITABILITY among them.

During his interview with Real Estate Weekly, Mirante brandished two such cards from his own wallet.

"I've updated these," he said, with pride.

It may be the size of a business card, but Mirante recognizes this statement as gospel--nothing short of The Code.

In fact, when staff problems arise, it "is often because these people don't have a similar value system," and presumably are forced to find another system elsewhere.

"I don't think any other real estate firm has these statements," he said. Mirante took these values well beyond his own back pocket, however, by founding the firm's expansion on them.

"When we flew to London back in 1989 to meet with potential partners, I was a little concerned about how we would go about finding the right people to penetrate this market," said Mirante.

His first meeting with Healey & Baker, a UK-based real estate services firm founded back in 1820, was emblematic of what Mirante was seeking, and summarily found.

"We go in to meet with Healey & Baker and Paul Orchard-Lisle, a senior partner of theirs, immediately tells us that he has no respect for us. He even called the manner that we do business in the US 'repulsive,"' said Mirante.

"Then he says to us, 'I don't even know why I came to this meeting!"' said Mirante.

According to Mirante, the room was dead silent.

"I laughed. That broke the tension fast. And then I said 'You know what? We are going to be great friends,"' he said.

The brusque Brit in question was a brigadier and--later on--an Aide-de-Camp to Her Majesty the Queen in 1984.

Mirante laughed as he outlined Orchard-Lisle's distinguished career, adding that "he's an animal."' While some people might reject such a label as offensive, Mirante meant it in the best possible way, as someone who isn't afraid to say what they think in a direct fashion.

The fruits of that meeting are now history, as Cushman & Wakefield merged with Orchard-Lisle's firm back in 1998 in a transaction valued at $112 million.