Berkadia has expanded its mortgage banking platform in Kansas City, Missouri with the addition of Associate Director Ben Thomas. Reporting to Managing Director John Schorgl, Thomas focuses on permanent financing along with construction and bridge financing for commercial real estate and multifamily assets. Over the course of his career, he has closed more than $1 billion in loans across the country. His work has drawn on a wide mix of capital sources, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, life insurance companies, banks, CMBS lenders, and bridge lenders, aligning his experience with borrowers that seek access to multiple forms of debt capital.
In a separate leadership move, Farbman Group has hired James Elia as vice president of revenue. In this newly defined role, Elia is responsible for driving revenue growth across the firm’s full platform of related businesses. His oversight will extend to Farbman Group’s property management operations as well as the NAI Farbman brokerage business. He will also focus on revenue generation for Huntington Construction, Huntington Maintenance, the Apex trade companies, and ClimateGuard Pro, bringing these lines of business under a more unified growth strategy.
Colliers has also made a leadership change in Kansas City, Missouri, appointing Jeff Winters as managing director and brokerage market leader for the local market. Winters will be in charge of all brokerage operations in the area, including recruitment, retention, and business development. He will report to Jeremy Jacobs, who serves as President for the Central Region Brokerage. Winters takes over from Ed Elder, who led the Kansas City office for a decade. Elder will remain with Colliers as a principal, where he will concentrate on client relationships, strategic pursuits, and new business development rather than day-to-day management responsibilities.
On the technology front, Baird & Warner has introduced BWCONNECT, an integrated platform built around how the company’s agents conduct their business. The new system is designed to remove the friction associated with using separate, uncoordinated tools by consolidating key resources into a single environment. BWCONNECT brings together the firm’s technology, marketing capabilities, business intelligence, and support services, and organizes them around an agent’s typical workflow. The aim is to streamline how agents access information and support so they can manage their activities from one connected ecosystem.
Taken together, these updates highlight ongoing investment in talent, leadership realignment, and technology infrastructure across major regional players. Berkadia and Colliers are reshaping their Kansas City, Missouri operations with new leaders focused on financing and brokerage performance, while Farbman Group is centralizing revenue leadership across its related service lines. At the same time, Baird & Warner is emphasizing productivity and integration for its agents through the rollout of BWCONNECT, underscoring how service and brokerage platforms in the region continue to refine both organizational structures and tools to better support clients and internal teams.
