Asset Services Insights

Why did you decide to work with the CIA rather than the

State Department?

I have always been inclined more to action than being a

passive observer. In the interviews, I came away with the

impression that State Department Foreign Service Officers

were more observational whereas the CIA was more activist.

As it turns out, both are crucial in helping to shape history, so

my initial impression wasn’t entirely accurate.

Are you able to tell us anything about the things you did

while in the CIA?

I can’t go into any detail. Let’s just say that I fought in

three wars—the Cold War, the Falkland Islands War, and

the Global War on Terrorism. I lived in four countries

overseas and conducted operations in dozens of others on

three continents. I recruited and ran agents, worked with

our foreign intelligence liaison partners, ran paramilitary

operations on land and sea, and managed multi-million

dollar programs. I conducted counterterrorism operations

prior to 911 and supported our Special Operations teams in

Afghanistan who took the fight to al Qa’ida and the Taliban

less than a month after 9/11. My agency career took me from

Argentina to Yemen although I never got to Zambia. That’s

close enough for “from A to Z” for me.

ASSET SERVICES INSIGHTS | 33

Before we dive into understanding your role here

at Cushman & Wakefield, can you give us a brief

background on your unique professional background?

I guess I do have a somewhat unusual background for

someone in commercial real estate. My father was an

electronics engineer in the aerospace industry so we moved

around a lot when I was young. We lived in England, Spain,

France, and Germany when I was very young and then moved

to Tidewater, Virginia where NASA was then headquartered,

followed by Houston, Pasadena, and ultimately the

Washington DC area. I attended 11 schools by the time I

graduated from high school, so moving around

a lot was the norm for me.

I studied journalism in college and had always wanted to work

as a foreign correspondent for a newspaper. I graduated in

the midst of a recession and couldn’t get a job, so I went back

to school, earned a Master’s degree, and in the meantime

applied to both the State Department and the Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA) because this would enable me to

live and work overseas. The State Department responded

and offered me a position as a political officer to work in

U.S. embassies abroad, so I called the CIA to withdraw my

application. They ended up making me a job offer on the

spot, so I took it.

Providing best-in-class commercial real estate management services to our clients across the

globe requires being able to identify hazards and threats, and to respond quickly and effectively to

these disruptive incidents when they occur.

In an increasingly complex and insecure world, Jim Rosenbluth, Director of Global Security and

Resilience at Cushman & Wakefield, develops reasonable security solutions to protect client

investments, supported by a lifetime of experience. We recently spoke with Jim to understand

the unique skillset he brings to Cushman & Wakefield and how our Global Security and Resilience

platform is a not only critical in the world today, but a differentiator among our competitors.