This December, Midwest Real Estate News will present its second Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame, honoring more than 50 of the industry’s top names. It’s our most popular issue of the year.
We’ll also be running profiles of several of our Hall of Fame inductees on Rejournals.com. Here’s a sample from our December issue.
Elaine Melonides International Director, National Transaction Advisory Services Lead Jones Lang LaSalle Chicago
A quick list of Elaine Melonides’ clients at Jones Lang LaSalle reads like a who’s who of the Fortune 1000. These clients include BP, Ernst & Young, A.T. Kearney, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Spencer Stuart and HSBC. During her career, Melonides has completed more than 8 million square feet of lease transactions for these and other high-profile clients.
While providing top service to her clients, Melonides has become recognized as an expert in master-planning, complex financial structurings, build-to-suits and headquarters advisory work.
This has led to a quick, and well-deserved, ascension at Jones Lang LaSalle. Working from the company’s Chicago office, Melonides recently earned promotion to the prestigious post of National Transaction Advisory Services Lead, a key position within the company’s Corporate Solutions practice.
In her new position, Melonides works with corporate clients to help boost the value of their commercial real estate. To do this, Melonides studies economic and marketplace trends, analyzes her clients’ overall business goals and creates strategies that help her clients generate the most value from their real estate holdings.
Today, Melonides leads a national team of more than 180 real estate executives in Jones Lang LaSalle’s key markets. She and this team have already achieved some notable successes. For instance, Melonides led Jones Lang LaSalle’s successful pursuit of several high-profile client engagements in 2011. This includes a 280,000-square-foot project for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago, a leading consulting firm’s Midwest portfolio of more than 250,000 square feet and an early renewal of the global transactions contract with BP.
Thanks to such efforts throughout her career, Melonides has earned several top real estate honors, both at Jones Lang LaSalle and from outside organizations. In 2008, Jones Lang LaSalle promoted Melonides to international director, a designation recognizing senior professionals who have made outstanding contributions to the firm. Of the company’s more than 30,000 employees in 60 countries, only 206 have earned this honor, Jones Lang LaSalle’s highest leadership level.
Melonides won the Transaction of the Year award from NAIOP in 2007 and was a finalist for the honor in 2002. She was named one of the Women of Influence by Real Estate Forum in 2008 and a Woman of Impact by Midwest Real Estate News’ sister publication Illinois Real Estate Journal in 2008.
