Gary Beasley, CEO and Co-Founder of both Waypoint Homes, the first single family rental housing company to go public, and now Roofstock, discusses business strategy, building one of the first single family rental companies to achieve scale, and how SFR is a part of the strategy around the housing shortage in our country. Gary is one of the true innovators in the single family rental business, one of his earliest leadership endeavors being taking Waypoint Residential public after the GFC.

Brad Inman, founder and prior CEO of Inman, talks about trends, headlines, and the ecosystem of the single family home resale business. Brad is a journalist, thought leader, and unstoppable entrepreneur.

Michael Covarrubias, Chairman and Co-CEO of TMG Partners and Cyrus Sanandaji, Founder and CEO of Presidio Bay Ventures share what is really happening to real estate in downtown San Francisco and drill down into the underlying political backdrop. Michael and Cyrus, two of the most active Bay Area real estate developers and investors, have been leaders in the effort to help restore the city in this new era.

Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics and co-host of the podcast Inside Economics, shares his insider take on the economy and real estate market looking forward into 2024. I closed out last year with an episode featuring Mike Van Konynenburg from Eastdil Secured and Chris Hartung, who forecast the difficult year for real estate investing we had in 2023.

Daniel Radek, President of First Washington Realty, discusses resilience in the retail apocalypse, co-leadership, and culture. Based in the Washington, D.C. area, First Washington Realty is a national necessity retail owner and operator known for its neighborhood shopping centers located in densely populated communities.

Debbie Harmon, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Artemis, and Anar Chudgar, Co-President of Artemis, talk about finding opportunity in today’s market and the “force multiplier” effect of their investing through emerging managers. Artemis Real Estate Partners is a $10 B AUM real estate investment manager focused on middle market real estate investments across the equity and debt risk spectrum.

In September 2023, ZRG hosted a half-day symposium for real estate HR leaders in New York City, consisting of two panels. This is the second of those panels, featuring Amanda Fajak, President of ZRG culture consulting group, Walking the Talk, and Larry Krema, Managing Director in the Real Estate Practice of ZRG. They discuss how to create an actionable strategy for company culture.

Rick Caruso, founder and Executive Chairman of Caruso, owner of three of the top ten retail centers in the US, discusses the evolution of how he created breakthrough properties like The Grove, some of secrets of its success, as well as his civic and philanthropic activities in Los Angeles, including his recent run for Mayor. Rick’s innovative leadership and development thinking has led to the creation of one of the largest and most admired privately held real estate firms in the US, boasting three of the country’s most productive shopping centers, all in Southern California.

Stephanie Biernbaum, Chief People Officer of Hines, and Doug Holte, CEO of EXP by Hines, discuss change, innovation and striving to be a "beloved brand". In 2018, I had the privilege of sitting down with Gerald Hines to hear how he built one of the most respected, legendary names in the real estate business. This follow up conversation with Stephanie and Doug about their leadership in their respective role at Hines, now in its third generation of family leadership, is inspiring and marked with hard-won wisdom.

Scott Rechler, Chairman and CEO of RXR, delves into office space, the current downturn in the market, and value and importance of civic leadership for our industry. This episode with Scott builds upon my last conversation with Colin Connolly of Cousins Properties on the state of the office sector, while going beyond the topic at hand and into the broader realm of the commercial real estate markets.

Colin Connolly, President and CEO of Cousins Properties, details their outperformance in Sun Belt trophy lifestyle offices and the broader office market. Cousins, a fully-integrated REIT, is solely focused on “trophy lifestyle office” properties in the Sun Belt region and has outperformed Class A office properties in its markets.

Caroline Johns, Pembroke’s Director of Sustainability, details their long-term perspective on sustainability investments and resilient real estate assets. Caroline is the second interview in this year’s third annual series on real estate and carbon.

Brad Dockser is the CEO and Co-Founder of GreenGen, a global firm dedicated to helping real estate owners and investors move towards a zero–carbon future. In this week’s interview with Brad, we kick off our third annual month-of-August focus on climate change and the built environment.

Cathy Marcus, Global Chief Operating Officer and Head of U.S. Equity at PGIM Real Estate, discusses the power of playing the long game in real estate. A recurring theme throughout the Leading Voices in Real Estate podcast is just how essential a long-term vision is.

Matt Pestronk, Co-Founder and President of Post Brothers, details how he and his brother Mike became leaders in Philadelphia multifamily and are now taking their expertise in adaptive reuse of office buildings and ground up development to Washington, DC and other markets. When they founded their Philadelphia-based company just before the great financial crisis of 2007-2008, they had no idea what kind of challenges they would face on their entrepreneurial journey...

Constance Freedman, Founder and Managing Partner of Moderne Ventures, talks innovation in technology solutions and its impact on the real estate market. Moderne Ventures is a Chicago-based venture fund focused on technology firms that are disrupting the real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance, hospitality, and home services industries.

Mitchell Silver, now Principal of Urban Planning at McAdams, explores the lasting impact of work-from-home and the recovery of our urban fabric post-pandemic. In this week’s rebroadcast, I brought Mitchell back to revisit our original podcast episode together from two years ago.

In honor of Sam Zell, real estate legend and trailblazer, we revisit our 2016 conversation about how he built his real estate empire. As the son of Jewish immigrants who fled Poland in 1939 as Hitler invaded, Sam’s life path is marked by resilience, controversy, and an insatiable drive to succeed.

In part two of our series on real estate services platforms, Justin Wheeler, CEO of Berkadia, talks about the focus of his firm on multifamily finance and investment sales and how that focus defines their strategy and culture. This conversation is the flip side of the coin from our prior conversation with Brett White, who talked about the strategy and strengths of the global, full service real estate services platforms, Cushman & Wakefield, and CBRE.

Brett White, Executive Chair of Cushman & Wakefield and prior CEO of Discovery Land Company, discusses the evolution of today’s global giant real estate services platforms. As the first of this month’s two part series on the real estate brokerage and services platforms, Brett tells the story of the growth and evolution of the giant real estate services platforms.

Antonio Marquez, Principal and Managing Partner at Comunidad Partners, talks about his firm’s focus on workforce housing and their community oriented, impact investment business model. This is the second of a two part series this month on Leading Voices focusing on the housing crisis in our country.

I’m trading places this week, and I’m the guest! Enjoy this rebroadcast of my interview on Juniper Square’s The Distribution podcast with Brandon Sedloff.

Ismael Guerrero, President and CEO of Mercy Housing, dissects the housing affordability crisis, subsidized housing, and stewardship of public dollars. Founded in 1981, Mercy Housing has grown into the nation’s largest nonprofit owner of affordable housing.

Christopher Hawthorne, Senior Critic at the Yale School of Architecture, discusses why collective spaces deserve intentional design and public support. After over a decade as the architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times, Chris took a position as the first Chief Design Officer of the City of Los Angeles, working under Mayor Eric Garcetti...

Jordan Slone, Chairman and CEO of Harbor Group International, shares the secret sauce behind the company’s $20 billion, diversified, but apartment-sector heavy portfolio. With 58,000 units of apartments, Harbor Group International came in 15th on last year’s NMHC top fifty list of apartment owners.

This week’s podcast guest is Chris Merrill, the co-founder and CEO of Harrison Street, a $55 billion family of real estate funds focused on demographically-driven real estate niche sectors such as student housing, senior housing, life science, self-storage and infrastructure throughout the U.S., Canada and Western Europe. He talks about their strategy as a break out from the four main real estate “food groups” and how their strategy is “de-risked” both by focusing on these multiple niche sectors and through working through multiple operating partners in each business.

This week’s podcast guest is Kevin Marchetti the co-founder of Bay Grove, a real estate private equity firm that has built the world’s largest portfolio of cold-storage warehouses, and its operating company, Lineage Logistics, that runs the business. The company has scaled up by acquiring different businesses and portfolios, and now Lineage employs over 25,000 people globally.

This week’s podcast guest is Wemimo Abbey, a 30-year-old entrepreneur already making waves in the apartment business as Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Esusu. Esusu allows lower income renters to use their rental payments to help build their credit scores to create a pathway to their personal financial health.

As a holiday treat, this rebroadcast episode from January 2021 features Paul Saffo, forecaster and Head of Future Studies at Stanford University. He forecasts the future of city development in light of historic patterns of change, economic shifts, and the role of real estate post pandemic.

MacArthur Foundation Genius Award Winner and internationally recognized leader in the field of homelessness, Rosanne Haggerty, President and CEO of Community Solutions, dives deep into the challenges of the homelessness crisis and talks about how the problem is indeed “Solvable”. Rosanne puts the homelessness crisis in context as a symptom of broader systemic failures rather than as the fault of individuals experiencing homelessness.

This week’s podcast guests are Michael Van Konynenburg, President of Eastdil Secured, and Chris Hartung, Executive Director of Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics at Berkeley and Co-founder of the Terra Firma REIT investment funds. Mike and Chris provide their perspectives on how the downturn is affecting both the public and private commercial real estate markets particularly given the near lockdown in the real estate capital markets.

Ross Perot Jr., Chairman of Hillwood and real estate developer, talks about his varied businesses, inside and outside of real estate, including the development of the giant Alliance project in Fort Worth, developing public private partnership projects in the US and abroad, and about his father’s legacy.

This week’s podcast guest is Byron Carlock, the U.S. real estate leader with PwC and the primary author of the ULI/PWC annual survey, “Emerging Trends in Real Estate”. The podcast centers on the current market downturn in the real estate transaction market within the context of the longer term, very positive, fundamentals and trends for the real estate business.

Tyler Morse, CEO of MCR Hotels, discusses travel and the hotel business, experiential hotels, and business versus leisure travel.

This week’s podcast guests are Carl Shannon of Tishman Speyer and Larry Baer of the San Francisco Giants. The pair discuss the opportunities in the land surrounding the Giants’ stadium. Together, Tishman and the Giants are building the Mission Rock mixed-use project, a new neighborhood adjacent to the Giant’s Oracle Park. The space is 28 acres with 1.6 million square feet of office and retail, 1,100 residential units, and eight acres of public open space — all on the waterfront.Larry explains that the baseball kedInMission RockTishman SpeyerBaseball Reference

Matt speaks with Mark Preston, Executive Trustee and CEO of Grosvenor, on this week’s episode. Grosvenor is a 340 year-old family office and commercial property business in the UK, owned by the Grosvenor family. Their young patriarch and Chair, Hugh Grosvenor, is the Duke of Westminster. Matt reflects that this kind of business longevity is nearly unrelatable in the real estate investment business, where the time horizon is so often three, five, or at max, fifteen, year holds.Mark delves into what long-termism means from Grosvenor’s perspective, particularly around the issues and responsibilities surrounding carbon and community benefits for property owners.He emphasizes that while there is growing opportunity to invest in environmentally sound real estate, it is imperative to do so, if investors and developers are going to be responsible citizens. These long-term real estate investments and developments have the potential to make a significant impact socially and environmentally — as well as financially. Mark emphasizes that long-termism is less about planning to buy and own a property for 350 years than it is about building a positive and durable reputation. ResourcesMark Preston | LinkedInGrosvenorAFIRE

This week Matt sits down with Alex Robinson, CEO and co-founder of Juniper Square, a real estate technology company that is providing major backbone infrastructure for real estate investment managers and how they interface with their LPs. Juniper Square has gained tremendous market share over a short six years. Now that it has significant scale, it has the opportunity to play a major role in helping to create a more transparent and low-friction marketplace for GPs and LPs to bring capital and investment opportunities together in the real estate investment business. Juniper Square’s next level of work in its capital marketplace could be truly transformative for the industry.Alex’s success with Juniper’s Square’s resonates deeply with Matt on a personal level. Matt shares that years ago, when real estate was still the domain of the mom-and-pops and the deal cowboys, he was the Executive Director of the Multifamily Housing Institute. One of his jobs was to compile and share property and loan-level data and create an industry-wide database that supported moving multifamily from a secondary asset class into a primary asset class for real estate equities. His data project was 20 years too early, but it fills him with pride to see Alex start to make headway in that area.Alex and Matt drill down into accounting, reporting, transparency and capital markets. For Matt, this conversation has been timely given his recent work with CFOs and CEOs — the capital markets are the core driver behind every action taken in the capital intensive real estate business. ResourcesJuniper SquareLinkedIn | Alex Robinson

This week’s guest is Tim Schoen, President and CEO of BioMed Realty, a Blackstone company and an industry leader in life science and technology-focused real estate. Tim is a deeply experienced real estate and capital markets professional, and he is a true business leader within the biotech field. In this episode, Tim drills into the dynamics of the biotech real estate space, which has such a different business model, unique customer base, and range of specialty skills within the team to make it a market leader.Tim shares his passion about the real estate business overall as well as the intellectual engagement in focusing on the biotech field. Tim is fascinating to listen to because he is “always learning,” as evidenced by his leadership at BioMed, serving on the Salk Institute Board, and the challenges and opportunities for both the bio tech and real estate businesses to contribute to carbon reduction. ResourcesBioMed Realty

Mikael Colville-Andersen | Author & Founder of Copenhagenize Design CompanyThis week Matt’s guest is Mikael Colville-Andersen, speaker, TV host, author of “Copenhaganize”, and founder of Copenhagenize Design Company, a global consultancy firm that helps cities understand best practices and implementation of bike infrastructure for their communities. Mikael has a Canadian public TV show called “The Life-Sized City” and also hosts a podcast of the same name. Mikael and Matt talk broadly about urban bicycle infrastructure in-person from Copenhagen, one of the most bicycle friendly cities on the planet, in which 60% of commuting is done by bicycle.Matt is an avid cyclist, often cycling 30-50 miles on a given weekend morning. He reflects that bike culture in Denmark is not so much about riding for exercise as it is transport. Riding a bike in Copenhagen is casual — seeing people in suits coming home on their bikes, moms and dads bringing their kids to school, bikes with full baskets of groceries, people young, old, out of shape and in shape all just pedaling on their clunkers to get where they need to go are normal, everyday sights — and the protected bike lanes make it feel safe.Mikael is an urbanist and a deep believer in creating bicycle infrastructure and getting people out of their cars. He explains that a more intentionally-designed urban infrastructure will improve our cities, health outcomes, quality of life, and carbon footprint. This conversation provokes an important question: How does the real estate industry help promote this change on a larger, more consistent basis?ResourcesMikael Colville-Andersen | LinkedInBikes 4 Ukraine | Cykler til UkraineThe Life-Sized City | TVO Today“Copenhaganize” by Mikael Colville-Andersen2019 Copenhagenize Index“Best Bike Cities in America 2018” by A.C. Shiltron and the Bicycling Magazine Editors“The Best Cities for Cyclists” | The New York Times“Why We Shouldn’t Bike with a Helmet” | TEDxCopenhagen “The E-Bike Skeptic” by Mikael Colville-AndersenThe Life-Sized City Urbanism Podcast: Vancouver, Tall Buildings and Brent Toderian | Episode 09Matt’s Strava Feed

Matt’s guest this week is Sara Neff, Head of Sustainability at Lendlease Americas, a globally integrated real estate and investment group specializing in creating strong cities and connected communities. Sara dives into all aspects of sustainability in real estate, emphasizing that materials, construction practices, and management need to support carbon-neutral goals.Sara inspires business leaders to raise the bar in their companies on decarbonization and encourages young people interested in sustainability to join the real estate business. There is huge work to be done and this is an opportunity to move the needle on carbon not just in the industry, but nationally and globally.Sara believes that a business’ level of commitment to sustainability is a good indicator of its overall management quality. Leadership that cares about sustainability has a long-term vision for their company and can see that carbon-neutral, sustainable buildings are the future of the market.August kicks off a month of podcasts dedicated to climate change, beginning with this conversation with Sara. In two weeks, a conversation will be recorded live in Copenhagen with Michael Colville-Anderson, author of the book “Copenhagenize” and the host of the podcast series “The Life Sized City Urbanism Podcast.” Join Leading Voices all month for these crucial conversations on how real estate is changing the conversation around climate change and sustainability.ResourcesLendlease’s website

Matt converses with Doug Bibby of the National Multifamily Housing Council and Ed Walter of the Urban Land Institute this week. Doug and Ed are retiring soon from their respective roles, and both are stalwart leaders, especially through how they have pointed their organizations and, by extension, the industry as a whole toward responsible citizenry for the next generation of the business.Matt believes that as real estate development has become more scaled and institutional, responsible long-term thinking and stability are becoming more important industry behaviors than maximizing profits — it is a smart business practice that protects both individual companies as well as the reputation of the overall industry. Doug and Ed remind the listener that in this interconnected world, anyone can fall victim to the behavior and opinions of their neighbors or competitors. Yet, it is the real estate industry’s responsibility — especially through its investors and developers — to set a high bar for its reputation.ResourcesNational Multifamily Housing CouncilUrban Land Institute

Matt sits down this week with Mark Parrell, President & CEO of Equity Residential, one of the largest and most respected public companies in the real estate world and one of the long term leaders in the apartment space. Their conversation is a deep-dive through the different aspects of what is truly one of the best-run long-term hold real estate businesses in the country.Mark homes in on themes that are familiar on Leading Voices that merit repetition: Great operations, efficient technology, customer service, investment savvy, disciplined capital strategy, transparency, and the impact of political risk on the business. Mark emphasizes political risk in the business goes beyond rent control to assess whether jurisdictions are proactively investing in infrastructure or general pro-business policies. With EQR’s target affluent renter profile, their business needs to be in high functioning, exciting urban environments.Mark dives deeply into the operational aspects of the business, including using EQR’s size and scale and business platform to build long term career paths in the apartment business for site level workers, the importance of technology implementation on the resident experience, and comparing the advantages of the REIT model to the private equity model in the new market cycle.ResourcesEquity Residential’s website

This week Matt’s guest is John McLaren, President and Chief Operating Officer of Sun Communities, a REIT and the largest owner/operator of manufactured housing communities. John and Matt explore the different facets of the manufactured housing business in general, as well as a deep dive into Sun Communities’ business. John lends particular insight to manufactured housing as part of the affordable housing toolkit and its ability to address the financial and social needs of people from a variety of income levels. On the subject of manufactured housing providing different options for housing affordability, we also refer you to a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post from a friend of Matt’s, Daniel Weisfield, from Three Pillars Communities, about misperceptions about the manufactured housing industry, its overall impact on housing affordability for its residents as well as having inevitable rent increases in the business. Here is a link to Daniel’s post via LinkedIn…..Before Matt and John went on air for this episode, John shared that he unintentionally fell into the real estate and mobile home park businesses. He went on to say that his career has been a great blessing in which he has achieved success, and it’s clear from the way he talks about it that he has found a great deal of meaning and purpose in his work. Matt connected with this because he often feels the same way — he fell into real estate early on and then fell into recruiting mid-way through his career, both of which he grew to love. Sometimes a deep sense of purpose comes from career paths you don’t expect, so it’s worth it to keep a flexible mindset.The heart of this conversation lies in John’s vigilant commitment to the communities he serves. He believes that for a community to thrive, it must be built on a foundation of stewardship. Everything from relationships with manufacturers to innovating more aesthetically pleasing housing is done with the local community and its member’s quality of life in mind. Intentionality of this degree is one of many reasons why Sun Communities enjoys around a 99% resident retention rate — an example to which many in the industry should aspire.ResourcesSun CommunitiesLetter to Editor of Washington Post from Three Pillar Communities on LinkedIn

This week’s podcast guest is Majora Carter, a real estate visionary, developer, and author who is dedicated to revitalizing communities through talent retention. Her new book “ Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One,” pulls from her deeply personal experience in her own community, the South Bronx.The belief that they have it within themselves to succeed is the cornerstone of the culture that communities must establish to keep their best and brightest asset: their people. Persistent poverty is a problem that is self-replicating for low-status communities, but Majora says the solution lies in reimagining the measuring stick of success. Instead of success being defined by how far away you can get from your hometown, it should be defined by how you can transform it and impact it. This is a critical shift. While this conversation highlights the tangible benefits and opportunities that exist for today’s neighborhoods and homegrown entrepreneurs, the real takeaway is how these transformations create ripple effects that last for generations. Looking beyond the immediate task at hand to the broader view of what certain decisions and relationships, investments and developments can do is a central theme of the Leading Voices podcast and the larger Terra/ZRG vision.ResourcesMajora Carter GroupReclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better OneGreening the ghetto3 stories of local eco-entrepreneurship

This week Matt is joined by Bjarke Ingels, Roni Bahar, and Nick Chim from Nabr, a real estate development company specializing in sustainable, customizable apartments. Nabr’s mission is to address the housing crisis with a unique approach: a business platform that creates, at scale, well designed, attainably-priced apartment units on a homeownership model.Its founding team comes well-qualified for the task. Bjarke is one of the world’s leading architects and the founder of BIG, the Bjarke Ingels Group architectural firm; Roni came to Nabr via his role as WeWork’s Director of Development; and Nick boasts a background with Sidewalk Labs and Google.The trio reveals that the secret to Nabr’s business model and designs is that they are inspired by consumer productization. Too many developers build cookie-cutter housing that is not consumer-friendly in terms of technology, delivery, and design. Nabr is breaking the mold by pulling inspiration from consumer companies like Lego, Tesla, and Apple. Matt highlights a throughline between his conversation with Bjarke, Roni, and Nick and the Terra Search merger with ZRG Partners, as both are intent on building businesses of scale with a bespoke consulting model.

This week, Matt is joined by Joe Margolis, CEO of Extra Space Storage, one of the largest providers of self-storage in the U.S. Joe explores the drivers of the exponential growth the industry has seen in the past few years, the importance of company culture and customer care, and why self-storage is ultimately about hope.Matt shares an interesting connection with Extra Space. His wife is a member of its board and was instrumental in helping raise Extra Space’s first institutional capital. They have seen from both inside and out that Extra Space is a company that cares deeply about providing an excellent customer experience and maintaining a family-centered culture. Joe illustrates this point with a story from his first week at Extra Space. He’d moved from the East Coast to Utah for the job, and at the end of the work day asked an employee to run some numbers for him. Joe expected the employee to jump to it right away, and was shocked when he took the numbers and went home to have dinner with his family. He learned quickly that family time was a priority for the business and that not everything needed to be treated as an emergency.Joe shares the diverse industry landscape that comprises self-storage. While Extra Space and its five top competitors make up about 30% of the country’s storage facilities, the majority of the storage facilities in the country are still owned by smaller or regional owners, who usually have a portfolio of two to fifteen stores. Thus, self-storage is on the more fragmented side of the real estate industry and will be fascinating to follow as its demand continues to increase. 

This week, Matt is joined by Stephen Ross, Founder and Chairman of Related Companies, one of the country’s premier real estate development organizations. Stephen talks about their current mega-project, Hudson Yards, where we recorded the episode, the breadth of Related’s activities and both his personal business and philanthropic interests, including as owner of the Miami Dolphins NFL team.One of Stephen’s current projects takes the form of revitalizing downtown Detroit through a major new development. Stephen grew up in Detroit until he was 15, when his family moved to Florida. As soon as he had the chance, he moved back for college before planting himself more permanently in New York City. Detroit has been through changes and challenges since Stephen’s days there, but he still sees a bright future for it. His hope is that this new development will serve as a catalyst for a renaissance of the whole city.Stephen brings a trove of experience and a vision of real estate’s future to today’s episode. His desire to create ventures that matter is defined by mega projects like Hudson Yards and the Time Warner Center in New York, as well as Related’s ongoing business in affordable housing — an area which Stephen acknowledges is one of America’s biggest current needs.

This week Matt is joined by Bob DeWitt and Greg Bates from GID, the Boston-based, vertically integrated real estate investment manager. Bob is Vice Chairman and former CEO of GID and Greg is currently CEO and President. The pair tell the story of generational transitions in the real estate business through GID’s unique lens. Bob recalls transforming the business in the 90’s and early 2000’s as GID, and others, institutionalized their businesses. This opened doors to significant professionalization and scaling in both the apartment sector and commercial real estate. GID underwent another major growth spurt more recently when it has scaled to compete with the new huge private equity investment shops as part of real estate’s transition from an alternative asset class into a primary asset class. Greg foresees operational excellence becoming valued over capital appreciation as a measure of success as the market continues to shift.The theme of transition continues with Matt’s firm, Terra Search Partners, which has recently become part of the global talent advisory firm ZRG Partners, where Matt will become global co-head of their real estate practice. This merger will enable ZRG to grow its real estate practice globally and further Terra Search Partners’ long standing mission to help shape the future of the real estate industry.

This week, Matt is joined by Doug Yearley, CEO and Chairman of Toll Brothers, widely recognized as the most admired homebuilder in the nation. Doug’s leadership and extensive experience in growth management and expansion offers important insight. From the current supply chain issues to strategies for exiting the pandemic, he highlights the opportunities and challenges on the table. He also touches on the unique juxtaposition of a homebuilding business and the corporate, client facing culture required to meet the needs at the luxury end of production. Matt shares a surprising but significant connection with the Toll Brothers’ founder, Bob Toll. Growing up, they both attended Maine’s Camp Powhatan, albeit at different times. Bob went on to acquire Camp Powhatan which he has helped nurture as it transformed into an international peace center. Now called Seeds of Peace, the old camp is a space for children from opposing sides in conflict areas to camp together and foster open dialogue, relationships and understanding. Seeds of Peace serves as a powerful example of philanthropy done right, and the kind of values the Toll Brothers culture is built upon. What it takes to create a “best places to work” company has been a strong throughline over the course of this season, and this episode with Doug is no exception. His desire and ability to create a culture and business platform that transcends the transactional side of the real estate business is marked by determination and intention ripe with inspiration.Resourceswww.seedsofpeace.orgwww.tollbrothers.com

An internationally recognized leader in developing innovative strategies to end homelessness and strengthen communities Rosanne Haggerty joins Matt on this week’s Leading Voices in Real Estate. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Community Solutions, Rosanne oversees a nonprofit that assists cEmmunities throughout the U.S. and internationally in solving the complex housing problems facing their most vulnerable residents. Community Solutions also leads “Built for Zero”, a movement of more than 90 cities and counties using data to radically change how they work and make homelessness rare. As a 2001 MacArthur Genius, Rosanne broadened her work in this space after spending decades working in supportive housing. She formally established Community Solutions in 2011, and in 2021 The MacArthur Foundation provided an additional $100M grant to further develop her methodology. While homelessness is a step removed from our typical Leading Voices conversations, this discussion provides a perspective on a societal issue that ripples across real estate and how our industry can address homelessness.Rosanne was a Japan Society Public Policy Fellow, and is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, Ashoka Senior Fellow, Hunt Alternative Fund Prime Mover and the recipient of honors including the Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism from the Rockefeller Foundation, Social Entrepreneur of the year from the Schwab Foundation, Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian Design Museum’s National Design Award and Independent Sector’s John W. Gardner Leadership Award. She is a graduate of Amherst College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.Resources“Homelessness is Solvable” – Rosanne’s podcast interview with Malcolm Gladwell (June 2019)

In this episode, we take a visit back to Matt’s conversation from February 2018 with Keith Oden, Co-Founder and President of Camden Property Trust. Camden is one of the largest multifamily REITs in the U.S. that owns, develops, acquires, sells, and manages apartment communities with a current portfolio of 171 properties containing 58,300 units. We revisit this conversation since the themes of this pre-Covid conversation still deeply resonate. Camden was one of the first REITs to use its scale and business platform to invest meaningfully in technology and it also “took a stand” to create an outstanding culture. At the time of the interview, Camden was celebrating 11th straight year (now on its 14th straight year and currently rated 8th on the list) as one of Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”​, an auspicious accomplishment for the first real estate company to achieve any ranking on that list, which lifted the bar for the overall industry.Keith was co-founder of Camden’s predecessor companies in 1982 and has served Camden as President and Trust Manager since 1993. As a Principal Executive Officer and Director, Keith drives Camden’s strategic initiatives, leads the property operations and corporate support services, and promotes the company’s culture.After completing his Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin, Keith began his career as a management consultant with the then-public accounting firm Deloitte, Haskins and Sells in 1979. He joined Century Development Corporation, one of the most active real estate development firms in the Southwest in 1981, and later became Director of Financial Planning.For more than twenty years, Keith has been committed to developing one of the best multifamily companies in the industry. Under his purview, Camden successfully completed the mergers of three public real estate companies: Paragon, Oasis Residential, and Summit Properties in 1997, 1998 and 2005, respectively. Keith’s work was instrumental to the assimilation of these three companies into Camden’s culture.Keith is a member of the Executive Council of the Center for Real Estate Finance at the University of Texas and serves as advisor, financial supporter, guest lecturer and panelist for the faculty and students pursuing their MBAs in real estate finance. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and a licensed real estate broker in the State of Texas.

Co-CEO and a Founder of ACORE Capital, Chris Tokarski joins Matt on this week’s Leading Voices to talk about the CRE debt business in general and, specifically talk about the private debt providers, like ACORE, which have become a major part of the market, particularly in construction and transitional lending since the Global Financial Crisis. With approximately $17 billion of assets under management, ACORE is one of the largest private debt providers focused on commercial real estate, originating and managing first mortgages, B-notes, mezzanine debt, and preferred equity, deploying over $28 billion in more than 375 transactions since inception in 2015. Chris also talks about his early start in the business at Nomura—the then disrupter in the CRE finance business, meeting his current partners there and their path together at several firms before co-founding, and co-leading ACORE.Chris has over 25 years of experience in leadership roles with large, national lenders, including four years as Chief Credit Officer for Starwood Property Trust, and has served as an advisor on workouts and other financing solutions through multiple cycles. Chris has personally invested in commercial real estate throughout his career.The Commercial Observer has honored Chris in their annual listing ‘The 50 Most Important Figures of Commercial Real Estate Finance’, ranking him in the top 15 for the past 5 years.Chris earned a B.A. degree from Brown University with a double concentration in Business Economics and Organizational Behavior and Management.

On this episode of Leading Voices, Laura Foote, the Executive Director of YIMBY Action (the national organization for the “Yes in My Back Yard” movement) joins Matt and doesn’t hold back as she shares how we can influence policymakers—especially at the local level—to reduce barriers to building more housing that will address the huge housing shortage in the U.S. YIMBYs are the pro-housing counterpart to the NIMBY’s who so often block density and development. YIMBY Action is a national network in nearly 20 cities that understands the extreme housing shortages in our communities and takes political action to advocate for “abundant, affordable housing and inclusive, sustainable communities”. 

CEO of Boston Properties, Owen Thomas, joins Matt for the first conversation of 2022 on Leading Voices in Real Estate. Boston Properties is the largest office REIT, developing, investing, and managing Class A office buildings in Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C, with a portfolio of 193 properties. Owen exemplifies leadership in our industry with distinct parts of his career. First, he climbed the ladder at Morgan Stanley through a 24 year career, a large part of which was running their real estate state group, then serving as Chief Executive Officer of Morgan Stanley Asia. After his “retirement” from Morgan Stanley, Owen became Boston Properties’ CEO, where he’s served in the organization for close to a decade. Finally, he has made a commitment to the industry in key leadership positions, including serving as the immediate past Global Chair of the Urban Land Institute and his significant contribution to ULI’s Net Zero Imperative Initiative working to reduce our industry’s carbon footprint. Beyond sharing his career story, Owen provides insights on where he sees the office sector heading into the new year.In addition, Owen is Director of the Urban Land Institute Foundation, a Director of the Real Estate Roundtable, a member of the Executive Board of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts and a member of the Economic Club of New York. He is a Director of Episcopal Charities of New York and formerly Chairman of the Pension Real Estate Association and Director of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company. Owen attended and is a former Trustee of Woodberry Forest School, received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Jordan Moss, Founder and CEO of Catalyst Housing Group, joins Matt on this episode of Leading Voices in real estate to discuss his company, Catalyst Housing, which has focused on creating housing opportunities for the “missing middle”. Jordan founded Catalyst Housing Group in just 2015, which now controls or is under contract for 6,000 units, about $2.5 billion of asset value. This housing, which Jordan calls “Essential Housing”, is structured to preserve long term affordability for the essential middle-income workforce including nurses, teachers, and first responders (among others) who earn too much to qualify for traditional affordable housing, but are priced out of the communities where they work. On the podcast, Jordan describes the unique structure of public ownership that he pioneered and the critiques of the model, and his company’s work combining investment, innovation, and impact in our industry.Over the past two decades, Jordan has been actively engaged in the investment, acquisition, development, financing, and management of more than $4 billion of institutional multifamily transactions. Jordan founded Catalyst Housing Group in 2015 to combat rising income inequality, specifically through addressing California’s growing middle-income housing crisis.An active real estate technology investor/advisor, Jordan launched the Catalyst Innovation Lab, which focuses on incubating, piloting, and scaling innovative solutions, tools and partnerships that drive operating margins, building efficiencies and portfolio sustainability across the Catalyst portfolio and throughout the multifamily sector.Jordan formed the Essential Housing Fund to foster additional innovation across the complete spectrum of housing affordability – from homelessness to homeownership. The nonprofit’s current endeavors include scaling new shared-equity models addressing our country’s racial wealth gap, subsidizing rents for public school employees, and furthering diversity and inclusion efforts within the multifamily industry and beyond.ResourcesCalifornia Scheming (Forbes December 2021)

During this episode, we are rebroadcasting a Leading Voices favorite with Lisa Picard, CEO of EQ Office. EQ Office is the vertical of Blackstone that oversees the office assets of one of the world’s leading investment firms and its acquisition of the portfolios of Sam Zell’s Equity Office, CarrAmerica, Trizec, and other office assets. Lisa’s story exemplifies one of the most compelling career trajectories in real estate and passionately articulates the meaning, the ripple effects, and opportunities around innovation in real estate. This is a pre-pandemic discussion of the office business which will be a great background for our conversation right after the New Year with Boston Properties’ Owen Thomas about the current state of the office business.Lisa Picard is a woman with a vision. Thanks to technology, the office development space has evolved from a B2B market to B2C, and she’s on the front lines of in an industry resistant to change.“We’re really not producing products per say; we’re creating ideas. And so, … organizations’ access to ideas is really through collaboration, connection, of having really high-quality talent.”CuriosityLisa grew up in Southeast L.A. County with her twin sister and Depression-era parents who taught her to cherish and respect her resources. This instilled in her a fascination for her urban environment, and she went on to study Urban Planning at California State Polytechnic University.After graduation, she worked closely with the City of L.A., and she saw how developers had a different view book than she did. She wanted in and applied to MIT to dive deeper into development, planning, urban economics, and finance.Just before heading to MIT, at the age of 22 her father suddenly died and her mother the summer after, and Lisa had what she calls her mid-life crisis at 22. As painful as the grieving process was during her time at MIT, it taught her the importance of embracing each moment fully and staying true to herself.Navigating the Development FieldAfter MIT, Lisa moved back to San Francisco and began her journey with the Bristol Group where she had the freedom to grow and learn what a deal looked like and how to create one. From there, she joined the Hines team in Seattle and rode out the rollercoaster of the dot-com era. Next, she was approached by Canyon Ranch, where she learned the power of experience and brand.“Humanistically, there’s always got to be an invitation… when I say an invitation that’s the brand piece, that’s the promise of whatever it is, when I have that engagement with a piece of real estate.”When she was let go by Canyon Ranch, she felt like she had lost her sense of identity. She moved back to Seattle, and learned how to value herself as simply “Lisa Picard.” She started Muse Developments focused on multi-family development, and was soon approached by Skanska to expand their business in Seattle. She agreed and joined them in merchant building.Her vision for bringing humanity and experience-driven spaces into each of her projects made a big impact on Seattle, but she felt called to influence other cities. So when Equity Office approached her, she was ready to join them.TodayAs the CEO of Equity Office, Lisa is focused on the vision and positioning of projects, like the Willis Tower in Chicago, in a way that satisfies the desires of the market.She looks at it with the mindset that every worker needs a balanced diet of productivity: concentration space, collaboration space, and community space. This is what the modern workforce desires, and that is the value and level of service she is striving to deliver as she repositions assets.Being a WomanAt first, Lisa admits that she tried to fit in. But thanks to her mentors who instilled confidence in her and empowered her to believe in herself, she learned her worth. She hopes to do this for other women.AdviceWhen you work in the urban environment and real estate, what you put into the environment affects people. It changes the urban environment and you have to give a sh*t. You have an obligation to people and your surroundings.

On this episode of Leading Voices, Matt is joined by David Stanford, founder of RealFoundations. RealFoundations is a professional services firm focused on “helping companies that develop, build, own, operate, service, occupy, or invest in real estate make smarter, more profitable decisions. We make real estate run better.” David and Matt discuss the thesis that, as real estate companies become of institutional scale, the “operating platform” of the business can move the needle more than the transactional side of the business. David and Matt dive deep into how strategy, operations, technologies, culture, and training can move the needle with significant NOI swings.David has over 30 years of experience providing strategic financial and operational improvement services to clients in the property and building industries. David leads RealFoundations’ Owner/Operator and Investment Management practices and is responsible for the corporate development activities of the firm. Additionally, he is responsible for implementing the global presence and alliance program of RealFoundations.David is highly experienced in providing large-scale operational and technology services to private and public real estate owner/operators and institutional investors. He has directed client teams in the execution of large business improvement projects, long-range technology plans, packaged technology selections and solution implementations. David is also highly experienced in assisting management teams with strategy, development, and operating model transformations. Some of his clients include the most respected real estate organizations in the world, including Blackstone, GIC, J.P. Morgan, Greystar, Walmart, KIMCO, Hines Interests, Brookfield, and Invitation Homes.Prior to founding RealFoundations David was a Partner of Ernst & Young’s real estate practice in Dallas. He also worked in the Transaction Advisory group of Kenneth Leventhal & Company.David graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting & Finance.

Matt is joined by Dan Doctoroff, Chairman and CEO of Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet/Google subsidiary, dedicated to urban innovation, on this latest episode of Leading Voices. Sidewalk Labs tackles “cities’ greatest challenges by creating products and solutions, investing in new companies, and helping developers build more sustainable, innovative, and equitable places around the world”. Dan is a testament to what it means to be a leader in our industry. While Managing Partner of the private equity investment firm Oak Hill Capital Partners, he founded NYC2012, spearheading an Olympic City bid for NYC which resulted in a vision for urban redevelopment of the city. Under Mayor Bloomberg, he served as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding, where he helped lead NYC’s resurgence after 9/11 through a comprehensive five-borough economic development strategy. This included plans to redevelop areas that are now high-profile destinations like the High Line, Hudson Yards, and Governor’s Island. Dan shares how large-scale redevelopment can happen under great leadership and how his new role with a technology giant can help tackle challenges in urban environments.From 2008 to 2014, Dan was President and Chief Executive Officer of Bloomberg L.P., the leading provider of news and information to the global financial community. Prior to joining Bloomberg L.P., Dan served as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding for the City of New York. With Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, he led the city’s dramatic economic resurgence after 9/11, spearheading the effort to reverse New York’s fiscal crisis through a comprehensive five-borough economic development strategy. In that role, Dan oversaw the creation of PlaNYC, New York’s pathbreaking sustainability plan. His memoir-manifesto, Greater than Ever: New York’s Big Comeback, chronicled his experience in City Hall.  Before joining the Bloomberg Administration, Dan was Managing Partner of the private equity investment firm Oak Hill Capital Partners. While at Oak Hill, Dan founded NYC2012, the organization that spearheaded efforts to bring the Olympic Games to the city.Dan serves on the Boards of the University of Chicago and Bloomberg Philanthropies. He is the founder of Target ALS, which raises funds for and has established a new model of collaboration to advance ALS research. He is a founder and chairman of The Shed, an innovative new cultural institution on Manhattan’s Far West Side. Dan is a graduate of Harvard College and The Law School at the University of Chicago. A native of Michigan, Dan has lived in New York for the past 37 years with his wife Alisa. 

Ned Spieker joins Sam Zell, Gerald Hines, Art Gensler, Ron Terwilliger, and Leonard Wood as part of our industry legends series on Leading Voices in Real Estate. Like many of our guests, Ned came out of the Trammell Crow Company, where he had been then their youngest partner, and established and built their West Coast Division. He spun his team out in 1987, founding Spieker Properties and taking the company public as a REIT in 1993. As one of the most respected CEOs among REITs at the time, Ned led Spieker Properties to aggregate more than 40 million square feet of office and industrial properties in California and the Pacific Northwest. In 2001, Spieker Properties sold to Sam Zell’s Equity Office Properties Trust as a top of the market trade for more than $7 billion. Ned has since gone on to become one of the most active developers and owners of Continuing Care Retirement Communities in California. Ned shares stories from throughout his successful real estate career, including his ongoing focus on the value of partnerships and a decentralized approach to the business.

On the latest episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, Matt is joined by Julia Boyd Corso and Marshall Boyd, Co-Presidents of Interstate Equities Corporation. Founded in 1981 by their parents, IEC is a value-add investor and manager of multifamily properties across California and now Seattle, with a niche of acquiring dated apartments and transforming them into attainable, updated, boutique-style assets for the current resident demographic. Julia and Marshall took over the organization in 2007 following the passing of their father when they were 27 and 29 respectively. Some of the themes of this episode surround the challenges of starting in the industry as emerging leaders, the transition of a family company to a private equity business, the benefits of a co-head structure, and climbing the ladder from a syndication model up to a commingled fund business.About JuliaJulia is co-president and chief operating officer responsible for corporate operations, asset management and repositioning of all investments. She sets the strategic direction of the company and its investment activities as a member of its Investment Committee. Prior to joining IEC, Julia worked in management consulting for Accenture. Julia graduated summa cum laude from Emory University with a B.A. in Economics and holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is a member of the Urban Land Institute and the Stanford Real Estate Council.About MarshallMarshall is co-president and chief investment officer as well as a member of the company’s Investment Committee. Prior to joining IEC, Marshall worked on the investment team at TA Associates and in investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston. Marshall graduated from Middlebury College with a B.A. in Economics and a minor in Spanish. He is vice chairman of the Urban Land Institute’s Multifamily Silver Council and a former board member of The Young Presidents’ Organization.

Jodie McLean, CEO of the retail owner, operator, and developer EDENS joins Matt on Leading Voices in Real Estate. Founded over 50 years ago in South Carolina, EDENS, now headquartered in Washington, D.C., has a portfolio of 110 properties consisting of mixed-use, shopping centers, grocery-anchored retail, and unique historic retail redevelopments. Jodie shares her “aha” moment when she moved her perspective and leadership from transactional to purpose and mission, resulting in EDENS’ focus on their “enriching community through human engagement”. EDENS knows that “when people come together, they feel a part of themselves and prosperity follows: economically, socially, culturally and soulfully”. Jodie talks about this approach throughout the business, including through the challenges of COVID and EDENS’ development of the historic Union Market District in D.C., where EDENS offices are located and our conversation was recorded.With a tenure of more than 25 years, Jodie has established herself as a key player in EDENS’ growth and expansion to its current marketplace leadership, capitalized by blue chip investors and assets valued at $6.5 billion.Jodie is responsible for EDENS’ strategy to move the portfolio to major urban centers, creating a portfolio of assets that are the center of community life. She was named Chief Investment Officer in 1997, President in 2002 and CEO in 2015. Overall, she has been responsible for the development, redevelopment, acquisition, and disposition of more than $15 billion in retail assets.Jodie passionately believes that retail should evolve beyond a shopping experience, and advocates for connectivity to the communities surrounding the company’s retail centers. To ensure this, each EDENS development is crafted to serve as an authentic gathering place, including a unique merchandising mix and welcoming design elements, fostering a sense of engagement with its neighbors.Jodie serves on several boards including Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE: CWK), the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and Milhaus. She is also a Trustee of Innovating Commerce Serving Communities (ICSC), the Urban Land Institute (ULI), and The Real Estate Round Table. Jodie is a member of the Liberty Fellowship (Aspen Institute), Class of 2009.A native of Chicago, IL, Jodie holds a B.S. in Finance and Management from the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, and a degree from South Carolina Honors College.ResourcesThe Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community by Ray Oldenburg

In Leading Voices’ inaugural “back to school” episode, Matt interviews Sam Chandan, the Larry & Klara Silverstein Chair and Academic Dean of NYU’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, one of the largest real estate graduate and undergraduate programs globally. In a wide-ranging conversation, Sam shares the value of an education in real estate and how it prepares future leaders for their careers in the multi-disciplinary business of real estate. In the episode, they discuss the complex issues addressing our industry, including climate change, urbanization, social equity, diversity in leadership, and public health issues. Sam provides a framework on how our industry can cultivate the next generation of leaders through educational programs, mentorship, and other opportunities, and how his personal relationship to establishing the Real Estate Pride Council which provides a connective network for professionals in the built environment who identify with the LGBTQ+ community.Beyond his role with NYU, Sam is also founder of Chandan Economics, an economic advisory and data science firm serving the institutional real estate industry, editor of Urban Epidemiology, a contributor to Forbes, and host of the Urban Lab Podcast. Sam is also chair of the Real Estate Pride Council, an association of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender professionals in the global commercial real estate industry.Sam is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS), the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH), and the Real Estate Research Institute (RERI), and an Associate Member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). His interdisciplinary research explores the urban epidemiology of microbial diseases and the preparedness of global cities and other systemically important urban areas in managing novel public health threats.Sam’s commentary on commercial and residential real estate markets and the broader economy has been featured regularly in national and global press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, CNBC, and Bloomberg. Among his recent publications, he was the lead investigator for Regulatory Design and Real Outcomes, a major study on the regulation of commercial real estate lending commissioned by the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC).Sam’s real estate industry-specific research focuses on commercial real estate capital markets and risk analytics, as well as long term changes in space use patterns. He presents regular updates on commercial real estate lending trends to US and global regulators, including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). He holds an honorary appointment as the Economist Laureate of the Real Estate Lenders Association and has served on the real estate advisory council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.Sam received his PhD in Applied Economics from the Wharton School and was a Doctoral Scholar in the Economics Department at Princeton University. In addition to his doctorate, he holds graduate degrees in economics and engineering and an undergraduate degree in economics, finance, and public policy. He served previously on the faculties of the Wharton School and Dartmouth College. Prior to founding Chandan Economics, Sam was Global Chief Economist and Executive Vice President at Real Capital Analytics (RCA). During his tenure as Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at Reis, he was part of the executive team that took the company public.Sam resides between New York City, Montréal, and Upstate New York, where he is a volunteer firefighter and a member of his town’s emergency medical services corps.

In the second part of Leading Voices in Real Estate’s discussion surrounding sustainability in the built environment, Matt is joined by Elena Alschuler, Head of Americas Sustainability for LaSalle Investment Management, and Marta Schantz, head of ULI’s Greenprint Center for Building Performance. While much of the global conversation surrounding carbon emissions centers on transportation issues the built environment is responsible for about 40% of global emissions, while transportation is just 20%. Directly after recording this episode, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a new report going further than any previous statement indicating that climate change is “a code red for humanity”. While some of these changes are irreversible, this demonstrates the growing importance of climate mitigation and adaptation globally, particularly in the real estate industry. Both Elena and Marta share their perspectives from their respective roles, Elena being with a leading real estate investor, and Marta leading a global alliance of real estate owners, investors, and strategic partners from the Urban Land Institute. They discuss strategies for organizations to reduce their carbon footprint as well as advice for current and future leaders of the real estate industry to tackle this issue head-on.About Elena:Elena is a central leader for LaSalle’s North America sustainability initiatives. She works closely with the firm’s Portfolio Management team on sustainability strategies, as well as its Asset Management group to develop programs for property-level initiatives, including certifications, efficiency projects, energy procurement, green leases, and health & wellness projects.Elena joins LaSalle from View Inc., where she led real estate activities including the firm’s strategy and execution to scale adoption of smart glass in the office and multifamily sectors across the US and Canada. Prior to View Inc., Elena worked at the US Department of Energy in Washington, DC as a Building Technologies Project Manager, as well as the MIT Department of Urban Studies & Planning in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and HR&A Advisors in New York.She has a Bachelor’s degree from Bard College, and a Masters in City Planning from MITAbout Marta:Marta Schantz is the senior vice president for the Greenprint Center for Building Performance at the Urban Land Institute, a research center and worldwide alliance of real estate leaders committed to improving the environmental performance of the industry – reducing carbon emissions, and increasing building value. Recent focus areas range from City/Real Estate Partnerships for Climate Policy, to Embodied Carbon in Real Estate, to Net Zero Buildings. Before her time at ULI, Marta worked at Waypoint Energy, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the US Department of Energy. Marta is a LEED Green Associate and a Fitwel Ambassador. She holds a BS in biological engineering with a minor in science technology and society from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.ResourcesLaSalle Investment Management Sustainability WebsiteULI’s Greenprint Center for Building Performance WebsiteLaSalle Report: ESG Themes Take Center Stage (May 2021)ULI Greenprint’s Blueprint for Green Real Estate Report (2020)United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment ReportA Code Red for Humanity: Latest U.N. Report Reveals Many Climate Changes Irreversible (Urban Land Magazine Article | August 2021)Benchmark Your Building Using ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®Greentech Media’s Energy Gang PodcastGRESB Real Estate Reference Guide (2021)Design the Future Podcast

In the first of our two-part episode series on climate change and the built environment, Greg Smithies, Partner of Fifth Wall where he leads the Climate Technology Investment team, joins Matt to discuss sustainability in the real estate sector. Greg is the second guest on Leading Voices from Fifth Wall as Co-Founder and Managing Partner Brad Greiwe was featured in 2019. Our industry, the built environment, is responsible for about 40% of total global carbon emissions, about 3/4 of which comes from existing buildings and about 1/4 from construction and deconstruction. Addressing our industry’s carbon footprint in addition to finding adaptation strategies to cope with climate change will be a large global investment in real estate over the coming years. Greg provides a high-level global perspective on sustainability and shares how Fifth Wall’s $500M fund focusing on “climate tech” is a start in a burgeoning area of investment.Prior to joining Fifth Wall, Greg was a Partner at BMW i Ventures where he led the Sustainability investing practice, investing in companies such as Prometheus Fuels, and PureCycle (NASDAQ: ROCH). Before joining BMW i Ventures, Greg led Finance & Operations for both The Boring Company and Neuralink simultaneously.Greg started his investment career at Battery Ventures where he covered early-stage enterprise technology startups, as well as industrial technology buyouts. Successful exits from his work there include Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), AppDynamics (acquired by Cisco Systems, Inc.), and IST (acquired by Scott Brand).Greg was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and currently lives in Oakland, CA. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School where he received a BS in Economics and a BS in Computer Science.ResourcesThe REInterview: Real estate’s climate reckoning, with Fifth Wall’s Brendan Wallace and Greg Smithies (The Real Deal, March 2021)The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson

In our 100th episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, Matt speaks with David Radcliffe, the head of real estate at Google, and the first corporate real estate guest on the podcast. David is responsible for managing all aspects of Google’s global real estate portfolio, industry-leading workplace services, and physical security services that enable the company to thrive. Through his leadership, David and his team create inspiring environments where 130,000+ employees in over 170 cities spanning more than 60 countries can do their best work every day. The conversation revolves around Google’s mentality to create unique, collaborative workspaces for employees to engage daily, corporate residences and communities beyond the workplace environment, and how the global tech giant is bringing personnel back in the office following COVID.In his 15+ years at Google, David has built and led teams that continually scale, evolve, and innovate Google’s dynamic workplace environment and services, promote employee health and drive sustainable solutions for both Google and our broader communities. From Google’s offices and workspaces to the food, events, and transportation options offered, the Real Estate & Workplace Services teams work closely together to provide an integrated workplace experience that’s a cornerstone of Google’s culture of collaboration and innovation. The Global Security & Resilience Services team work to keep Google and the Google community safe and ensure business continuity.David has deep roots in commercial real estate. Before joining Google in 2006, he served as a Senior Vice President at the Trammell Crow company, overseeing corporate accounts outside the U.S. Prior to that, he led global real estate and corporate services at PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. In 2011, CoreNet Global’s Northern California Chapter recognized David as its Corporate Real Estate Executive of the Year.David earned an MBA with a concentration in Real Estate and Construction Management from the University of Denver and a Bachelor of Engineering from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He currently serves on the External Advisory Board of Harvard’s Master of Design Engineering program, and holds CoreNet Global’s Master of Corporate Real Estate designation.

As everyone tries to make sense of the next cycle of the real estate industry post-pandemic, Matt is joined by Richard Barkham, Global Chief Economist & Head of Americas Research at CBRE, to discuss how COVID has affected various sectors of CRE. Richard provides his outlook sector-by-sector, including high-growth for both multi-family and industrial. He shares a balanced view on retail, given the need for various retail products like grocery and entertainment, and discusses the continued uncertainties and transitions in the office sector. Following, Richard shares his career journey in his unique senior-leadership position of real estate research and how his insights provide strategic direction for the largest global commercial real estate services company.Richard is a specialist in macro and real estate economics. He joined CBRE in 2014 as Executive Director and Global Chief Economist. Prior to taking up his position with CBRE, Richard was a Director of Research for the Grosvenor Group an international business with circa $10bn of capital under management in real estate. He was also a non-Executive Director of Grosvenor Fund Management where he was involved in fund strategy, risk analysis and capital raising. Richard is the author of two books and numerous academic and industry papers. In 2012 he published ‘Real Estate and Globalisation’ (Wiley Blackwell, Oxford), which explains the impact on real estate markets of the rise of emerging markets such as China and Brazil. He has extensive consulting experience and is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Construction and Project Management at the Bartlett School, University College London. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Reading where he taught, in the Departments of Economics and Land Management, between the years of 1987 and 1998.

During this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, Gunnar Branson, CEO of AFIRE, speaks with Matt about current issues facing the CRE business, including his thoughts on what is driving foreign capital into U.S. real estate right now as we are moving forward from the Covid crisis. As CEO of AFIRE, the Association for International Real Estate Investors, Gunnar leads the trade group with nearly 200 leading global institutional investors, investment managers, and supporting partners from 24 countries representing approximately $3 trillion in real estate assets under management in the U.S. Prior, Gunnar was CEO of NAREIM, the National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers. Gunnar is also the host of The AFIRE Podcast where he deep dives with business leaders on specific topics, strategies, and issues in the global real estate business.

Long-term colleagues Chaz Mueller, CEO of Progress Residential, and Dana Hamilton, Head of Real Estate of Pretium, jointly speak with Matt on this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate to talk about the single-family rental business. Progress Residential, a portfolio holding of Pretium, is the country’s largest privately held owner and operator of single-family rental. Dana and Chaz share the dynamics and drivers of the single-family rental business, which has only recently emerged as a significant real estate asset class, institutionalizing a heretofore wholly “mom and pop” business. Dana and Chaz were among the founding leadership team at Archstone, which in the late ’90s, along with the other apartment REITs, were similarly institutionalizing a non-institutional business. They talk about the parallels between the early days at Archstone and this still-emerging business in single-family rentals as a new and permanent institutional asset class.About ChazChaz Mueller is the CEO of Progress Residential (Progress), one of the largest providers of high quality, single family rental homes in the United States, with over 60,000 homes in many of the country’s fastest growing markets.Prior to joining Progress, Chaz served as President of Irvine Company Apartment Communities, a California-based real estate investment firm with more than 58,000 apartments, and as CEO of The ConAm Group, an owner and manager of more than 50,000 apartments. Chaz also spent nearly 20 years at Archstone, a leading publicly traded multi-family REIT valued at over $20 billion, where he held various positions including President, COO and CFO.Chaz is on the Executive Committee of the National Rental Housing Council and the Board of Directors of the McCombs Real Estate Investment Fund at the University of Texas. He has worked to help underprivileged urban youth for almost 20 years, serving on the Boards of Colorado Uplift, Urban Youth Ministries, Elevate USA and ACE Scholarships. Previously, he was on the Executive Committee of the Board of the National Multi-Housing Council, Chancellor’s Advisory Council at Texas Christian University and Board of Trustees of Valor Christian School in Denver.Chaz received a BBA in Real Estate and Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.About DanaDana Hamilton is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Real Estate at Pretium, a specialized investment management firm with more than $20B AUM, where she has played a leadership role in Progress Residential, the firm’s single-family rental platform, as well as its single-family rental funds and separately managed accounts, which together own and operate more than 60,000 single-family homes for rent.Dana has more than 25 years of experience building successful real estate operating and investment companies in the U.S. and in Europe. For most of her career, until February 2013 when the company was sold, Dana was a key member of the management team that grew Archstone-Smith (NYSE: ASN) into an industry-leading owner of apartments in the U.S. and abroad. At Archstone, Dana was most recently President, Europe, responsible for building the firm’s first non-U.S. operating and investment platform, while continuing to serve on Archstone’s U.S. Executive Committee. Prior thereto, she was Executive Vice President, National Operations, responsible for all corporate services including human resources, training and organizational development, marketing and communications, pricing and revenue management, business development and corporate research.

Neveo Mosser leads a fascinating second generation family business that operates mostly in the multifamily space. His father founded the company in the 1960s; they have owned many of their generational assets now for decades. Mosser specializes in owning and managing rent stabilized apartments in the Bay Area and now also in Southern California. Mosser is one of a handful of sharpshooter companies that operate in this niche in the business.As he will explain, there are two sides of the Mosser business: the owner-operator side and a relatively new business, Mosser Capital, which invests in this asset class for third party capital. Neveo and Matt discuss the dynamics and drivers of his business, how they have fared through COVID in San Francisco, a market that overall saw some of the largest rent drops in the country, and the dynamics of his career path as a second generation business leader.For more than 30 years at Mosser Companies, Neveo has developed a deep expertise in investing and property management in the multifamily and hospitality sectors, including acquisitions, turn-around projects, workforce housing unit renovations, capital improvement projects, and repositioning value-add and distressed assets. At Mosser Capital, Neveo has led and contributed to all facets of the company, including strategic vision, developing new capital partner relationships, acquisitions, recapitalizations, dispositions, geographic expansion, and asset management.He is a past president of the San Francisco Apartment Association and the Coalition For Better Housing, two leading organizations representing apartment owners in the San Francisco Bay Area. He continues to serve both the San Francisco Apartment Association as well as the Coalition for Better Housing as a member of the executive board of directors and The Oakland Jobs and Housing Coalition. He was also a member of the executive board of directors for the California Apartment Association. For over 20 years, he served as a Commissioner on the San Francisco Residential Rent Board, under Mayors Willie Brown, Gavin Newsome, Ed Lee and London Breed. Additionally, Neveo is a member of the iREOC Board of Governors and University of California Berkeley Fisher Center Policy Advisory Board. He has served on the board of directors for the African American Cultural Center, The Tenderloin Museum, and the SF YMCA.

On Tuesday, May 10, the real estate community lost one of its great thinkers and leaders, Art Gensler, the Founder of Gensler, the world’s leading design firm. This is a re-release of our November 19, 2018 Leading Voices interview with Art Gensler, who founded the eponymous-named design firm in 1965, which has grown to become the largest design firm in the world. For a fuller appreciation of Art’s life and work, visit www.gensler.com/art-gensler-legacy on the Gensler website. This original interview was sponsored by JLL and featured a joint conversation with Art and Riki Nishimura, then a Director with Gensler.This re-release is timely given the current depth of thinking, in which Gensler is one of the world’s thought leaders, around reimagining the workplace and the future of our cities in a post-pandemic world. For a more current discussion on the topic, please also revisit our July, 2020 interview with current co-CEO of Gensler, Andy Cohen.From original release:When Art Gensler started his firm in 1965, Gensler solely did interiors. Today, it is not just an interior or a design firm; rather, Gensler thinks of itself as a full-scale, client-focused design firm with a team of 6,000 in 48 offices around the world.He remembers knowing he wanted to be an architect from since he was 5 years old, and credits his ability to visualize things and communicate that vision well to his skill as a planner.After working in the service, he went on to work for a Shreve, Lamb and Harmon in NYC, spent time in the British West Indies, and created the entire architectural standards guide for Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons. At 30, he struck out on his own.EvolvingArt says that when he founded Gensler, it started slowly by focusing on producing high-quality work. The recognition Gensler received for these early projects led him into the consulting field, and soon Gensler was being tapped by Pennzoil to do more than just interior design. Now, their workload is about 50% architecture and 50% interiors, branding, graphics, product design, and consulting.“You’re designing space for people that they’re going to use, not just look at, but actually physically use which is the most important space that we’re going to do. So I’ve always felt that the interior is as important as the outside.”Creating an Excellent TeamArt emphasizes that at Gensler, it’s not just about the designer. The receptionist and the accounting department get just as much recognition as the designer. And ultimately, their clients are the priority.“Success for designers and people in our industry is not how big the pile of chips is in front of you. Success is a happy client and a successful project.”When Apple asked Gensler to create a brand new retail experience, Art was up for the challenge. While he says it was hard work and wasn’t easy, it was a project he will always be proud of.ChallengesThere’s a balance you have to strike in development. Art shares the example of how Steve Jobs never did focus groups because he said they didn’t know what was possible.You have to push things and people out of their comfort zone to a certain point.“We have to now really build frameworks which are adaptable and modifiable, and the inside is going to be more modifiable than the outside, but they’ve all got to be changeable because the world is changing and people have to recognize that.”AdviceArt: Get a good, broad education. You need a breadth of knowledge to be a future contributor to society. Also, learn how to speak in public.

Matt spoke with Jim Risoleo, President and CEO of Host Hotels & Resorts, during this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate. Host Hotels & Resorts is the largest hospitality REIT with over 46,800 hotel rooms worldwide and the largest owner of high-end hotels in the United States with brands including Marriott, Ritz Carlton, Westin, and Hyatt. Given today’s COVID environment, much of the conversation revolves around the pandemic’s impact on the hospitality sector, how Host Hotels & Resorts has weathered the storm, and his predictions for business resumption coming out of the pandemic. Additionally, Jim shares his insights as a leader within the real estate industry as the chair of NAREIT, the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.Jim became President and Chief Executive Officer of Host Hotels & Resorts in January 2017. He joined the company in 1996 as Senior Vice President for Acquisitions, and was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer in 2000. In 2012, he became Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the Company’s European business activities and, in 2015, Jim assumed leadership for all of the company’s West Coast investment activities in addition to Europe.Prior to joining Host Hotel’s and Resorts Jim was Vice President, Development at Interstate Hotels Corporation and a Senior Vice President, Commercial Real Estate at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Jim serves as a director of Cole Office & Industrial REIT, a public non-listed REIT, and is a member of its audit committee and Chairman of its valuation and compensation committee. He previously served as the non-executive Chairman of Cole Office & Industrial REIT from 2015 to 2018. In addition to serving as Chairman and an Executive Board member of NAREIT, he is an Executive Committee member of American Hotel & Lodging Association, a member of the U.S. Travel Association CEO Roundtable, and a member of the Real Estate Roundtable.

This week on Leading Voices in Real Estate, Mitchell Silver, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and a global leader in urban planning, joins Matt to discuss his work for the city and his long career in city planning. With his appointed role as Parks Commissioner, Mitchell has been responsible for the management, planning, and operations of nearly 30,000 acres of public space in New York. Matt and Mitchell talk about bringing greater equity to the city’s investment in its parks, particularly in neighborhoods of color, and about the challenges brought by COVID to New York’s public places. Known as one of the thought leaders in planning and someone with great passion for the importance of a planning approach to the growth of our cities, Mitchell is the past president of the American Planning Association (APA) and is currently president of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) . Mitchell also shares many of his successes throughout his career and current role, including how to make parks and communities more equitable and his experience as a leader of color in urban planning.Mitchell is an award-winning planner with over 35 years of experience. Prior to returning to his native New York City as Parks Commissioner, he served as the Chief Planning & Development Officer and Planning Director for Raleigh, NC. His career has included roles as a policy and planning director for New York City’s Department of Planning, a principal of a New York City-based planning firm, a town manager in New Jersey, and deputy planning director in Washington, DC.One of the nation’s most celebrated urban thinkers, Commissioner Silver has been elected to Planetizen’s list of the 100 Most Influential Urbanists in the world (2017), and named an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (2017), a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences (2016), an honorary fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia (2015), a fellow of the American Planning Association (2014), and an honorary lifetime member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (2014). In addition, he has been honored as one of the top 100 City Innovators in the world by UBM Future Cities, and in 2012 the Urban Times named him one of the top international thought leaders of the built environment.Mitchell Silver was born in Brooklyn and grew up near Prospect Park. He attended Midwood High School and received a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from Pratt Institute and a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from Hunter College. He is certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners and is a licensed Professional Planner in the State of New Jersey.Recommended Resources:AICP Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct“America Needs You to Fall in Love with Planning Again” — APA President Mitchell Silver, AICP (American Planning Association President Mitchell Silver, AICP, gives his opening keynote address at the 2012 National Planning Conference in Los Angeles.)Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice (ICMA 2009)Mitchell Silver, Planning in the 21st Century: “What’s Next?” (2013 Harvard Graduate School of Design Lecture)

President, CEO, and Founder of Juniper Communities (an owner/operator of seniors housing) Lynne Katzmann joins Matt on this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate. Lynne founded Juniper Communities over 30 years ago and is the only woman-owned business among the top owners in the assisted living business and has been recognized by various organizations including Crain’s New York as one of the top women-owned businesses in the tri-state area. Lynne has been a leader for other seniors housing owners during COVID, providing transparency at the start of the pandemic in her vulnerable communities to now requiring staff members to be vaccinated. Additionally, she shares what it means to be a female CEO and company founder in a male-dominated industry, the hospitality model of seniors housing, and how she wants to leave the world a better place through her work.Lynne founded Juniper Communities in 1988, an organization that invests in, develops, and operates senior living and long-term care communities. In 2019, she was selected as the inaugural recipient of the McKnight’s Women of Distinction Lifetime Achievement Award for her outstanding contributions to senior living and skilled care; and in January 2020 she was inducted into the American Senior Housing Association Senior Living Hall of Fame.Lynne has held memberships and leadership roles in various professional and community organizations, including currently serving on the Board of Sabra Health, Board of Directors of the Elder Care Alliance, the Executive Board of the American Seniors Housing Association, the Advisory Board of Senior Living 100, the Board of Trustees of Partners for Health, the Board of Advisors of Tufts University Medical School, and as the Secretary and Treasurer on the Board of Trustees of Naropa University. Lynne holds a doctorate in health policy from the London School of Economics.

This week on Leading Voices in Real Estate, Matt is joined by Jeff Berkes, President and Chief Operating Officer of Federal Realty Investment Trust. Founded in 1962, Federal is one of the oldest US REITs and is focused on the ownership, operation, and development of high-quality retail properties—from grocery-anchored shopping centers to large-scale mixed-use neighborhoods. As a non-mall retail owner, Federal has seen continued stability and success, despite the challenges of COVID and the realignments in the retail real estate sector due to the impact of e-commerce. Jeff shares Federal’s “secret sauce” of building mixed-use projects with retail, office, and residential to help drive the organization’s success and innovations and how Federal has worked with core tenants, including the hard-hit restaurants and retailers, to cope with the challenges of operating during the COVID shutdowns.Jeff is responsible for leading Federal’s day-to-day property operating functions, including leasing, development, asset management, and acquisitions, on both the East and West Coasts.Jeff joined Federal in 2000 as chief investment officer, and in 2011, became president, Western Region, where he was charged with growing the company’s presence on that coast. During the period between 2011 and 2019, the property operating income of Federal’s West Coast portfolio more than doubled, representing over 10% compound annual growth.Prior to joining Federal, Jeff was vice president of acquisitions and finance for Velsor Properties, a Northern Virginia-based private real estate investment firm. He served as director of acquisitions for Federal from April 1997 to August 1998. Prior to that, he was vice president of acquisitions for Heitman Financial/JMB Institutional Realty Corp. He also worked as a loan officer for ITT Real Estate Services and as a regional investment analyst for CB/Richard Ellis prior to joining JMB.Jeff has an undergraduate degree in finance and real estate from University of Denver and a master of business administration in international finance from George Washington University. Jeff is an active member of The George Washington University Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis Advisory Board, the Urban Land Institute (ULI), and the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).

This week, Robin Hughes, President and CEO of Abode Communities, speaks with Matt about her experience and leadership in the affordable housing community. Abode Communities is a nonprofit owner, developer, and designer of affordable housing. Based in Los Angeles, the organization is one of the top 50 affordable housing developers nationally and is the premier provider of environmentally sustainable affordable housing in California. The conversation begins with a discussion on how COVID has impacted Abode’s and other affordable owner’s residents, an important dialogue as the pandemic has disproportionally affected low-income communities. Additionally, Robin shares how growing up in public housing as a young child brings a lived experience into her current role where she not only serves as the President and CEO of Abode but also serves on numerous boards and committees in the affordable housing space including as chair of the Housing Partnership Network. Robin also provides advice on how to bring more people of color into more senior roles in the commercial real estate industry.Robin has been actively involved in affordable housing and community development for more than 30 years and in her 25 years as leader of Abode Communities. Under Robin’s leadership, Abode Communities has developed nearly 50 residential and mixed-use Communities; created new affordable homes for some 12,000 California residents and provided a social safety net through Beyond Homes, the organization’s social services program.Robin is an industry leader in housing policy at the local, state, and federal level. She serves or has served on numerous boards, task forces and advisory bodies where she continues to advocate for resources, programs, and policies to support the production on and preservation on of affordable housing for low-income residents. Hughes was chair of the Affordable Housing Advisory Council for the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, a member of the JPMorgan Chase Community Advisory Board of Los Angeles, and has served on the board of directors for organizations such as Southern California Association on of Nonprofit Housing, Low Income Investment Fund, Esperanza Community Housing Corporation, and Mercy Housing California.Prior to joining Abode Communities, Hughes held positions in the private and public sectors including The Richmond Group of Companies, Citibank, the Community Development Commission of the County of Los Angeles, and the Office of the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles. Her experience is highlighted by four years as City Planning Commissioner for the City of Los Angeles. Robin was recognized by Huffington Post as “Person of the Day and Women in Business as Outstanding Nonprofit Director. Robin was recognized by Commercial Observer as Top 25 Real Estate Leaders in Los Angeles. She also won Black Business Association’s Executive Leadership Award and was featured on the cover of National Real Estate Investor as “Champion of Affordable Housing”.She received her masters and bachelor degrees in public administration from the University of Southern California, and received a certification from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government Executive Program.

Vicki Been, Deputy Mayor of Housing and Economic Development for New York City, joins Matt on this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate. Vicki oversees 25 agencies responsible for both economic development and housing initiatives for the City, a portfolio in which the issues have deepened and accelerated during COVID. Matt and Vicki discuss her work during COVID, positive changes to the urban fabric that will likely persist post-COVID like outdoor dining and closed-off streets as well as her responsibilities for preparing for future health emergencies. As the former head of the city’s housing agencies, we also discuss the ongoing housing affordability crisis. Furthermore, Vicki shares her career story, which includes growing up in a rural Colorado uranium mining town to her clerkship at the Supreme Court (where she also met her husband) to leading the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, and now her roles in city government.

This week, Matt speaks with real estate leader Walt Rakowich, former CEO of Prologis and author of the new book, Transfluence: How to Lead with Transformative Influence in Today’s Climates of Change. In the interview, Walt tells his career story, interspersed with leadership lessons along the way. Walt’s true crucible as a leader came first when he was President and COO of Prologis and he found himself unaligned with the style and decision making of the CEO, leading to Walt’s resignation from the firm…and then rejoining the firm, just months later, to restructure and rebuild the business after a crash that he had essentially foreseen. In our conversation, Walt discusses these lessons in leadership but we certainly recommend that you take a deep dive into his philosophy and practice of servant leadership in Transfluence.Prologis is a NYSE company and a member of the S&P 500. Prologis is a leading provider of distribution facilities and services with over $50 billion in assets and operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Walt was Co-CEO of Prologis and member of the Board of Directors from June 2011 through December 2012. He was CEO of Prologis from November 2008 through June 2011. He was a member of the Prologis Board of Trustees from January 2005 through June 2011.Prior to becoming CEO, Walt was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Prologis from January 2005 through November 2008. He joined Prologis in 1994. From December 1998 to January 2005, he served as Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer for Prologis. Prior to this position, Walt was the Senior Vice President/Director of the company’s Mid-Atlantic region where he was responsible for expanding the reach of Prologis to the leading logistics markets in the Midwest and Atlantic states.Prior to joining Prologis, Walt spent nine years as a partner and principal with real estate provider Trammell Crow Company in Los Angeles. Before that, he was a senior audit and tax consultant for Price Waterhouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Walt received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and his B.S., with distinction, in Accounting from The Pennsylvania State University.Walt currently serves on the board of directors of Host Hotels & Resorts, where he is the company’s audit committee chairman and member of the governance committee; Iron Mountain Inc., where he is chairman of the audit committee and member of the governance and investment committees; and Ventas Inc., where he is chairman of the audit committee. All three are companies listed in the S&P 500. He also serves on the advisory council of Gender Fair. He has served as a member of the executive committee and the board of governors for the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), the primary industry group for REITs in the United States.Walt was appointed to The Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees in 2014 and serves as chairman of the university board’s audit and risk committee. In 2010, the Penn State Alumni Association named Walt a Penn State Alumni Fellow, a lifetime designation and the highest award given by the association, recognizing outstanding professional achievement. He also has served on the real estate advisory boards of the Smeal College of Business at Penn State, The Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University and The Kellogg Graduate school of Management. In addition, he served on the Global Leadership Council at Colorado State University.Walt currently serves as chairman of the board of Colorado UpLift and is a member of the board of the Alliance for School Choice in Education (ACE) and of PIVOT, three non-profits focused on educating at risk children in the inner city.About TransfluenceWalt Rakowich brings a real-world perspective to leadership that’s based on experience, not just theory. Walt was CEO of Prologis, the world’s largest owner of industrial warehouses and a critical partner to companies distributing products throughout the global supply chain. The company was near bankruptcy when Walt took over at the height of the Great Recession. While leading Prologis back to prominence, and in the years since, Walt realized leaders today must lean into timeless values and principles, but with a fresh perspective on the new realities of our leadership climates.The modern leadership environment exists at the convergence of three distinct and dynamic climates: the climates of access, diversity, and acceleration. On their own or in the aggregate, these climates produce significant opportunities and tensions that will challenge leaders for generations. With a fundamental understanding of these climates, leaders develop a selfless approach that withstands the toughest storms.Transfluence shows leaders how they can have transformative influence by overcoming their fears and pride, building transparency into their leadership, developing a strong core of authentic values, and passionately pursuing a meaningful purpose. When leaders do this, they seize opportunities, embrace challenges, and make their organizations and communities greater than ever. Learn more or order Transfluence here.

John Helm, Managing Director and Founder of RET Ventures, joins Matt for this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate. RET Ventures is the first industry-backed early-stage venture fund focused on helping build cutting-edge real estate technology companies for the multifamily and single-family rental industries. John is our third guest from the proptech space (we previously featured Clara Brenner from the Urban Innovation Fund and Brad Greiwe from Fifth Wall). RET Ventures’ business model is differentiated in both its focus on the rental space and that all of their investors are owner-operators, creating a virtuous cycle between clients, customers, and investors. In the episode, John and Matt talk about the impact of technology on the rental housing business, the benefits of tenure and deep relationships in a relationship-oriented business, and John’s fascinating career journey.John also sits on the boards of Smart Rent, GiGstreem, Fernish, Moved, Lexicon, Sight Plan, Funnel and Opiniion. Prior to founding RET Ventures, John was a Venture Partner with DN Capital in Munich, Germany, ran and successfully exited two venture-backed real estate tech startups, was CFO of Marcus & Millichap, and a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Today’s conversation is a re-release of the inaugural episode of Leading Voices, a conversation with then Mayor of Tacoma, WA and now, in 2021, a newly elected Congresswoman, Marilyn Strickland (D-WA). In this conversation, from 2017, Matt and then Mayor Strickland discuss the strategies for redevelopment that she used in Takoma, balancing neighborhood economic redevelopment neighborhood with the needs of the existing businesses and residents. We are re-releasing this conversation with Representative Strickland the week after last week’s chaos at the US Capitol, cognizant of the need for constructive leadership from our elected officials. As per the Seattle Times, “business friendly Strickland won…in a closely watched race mirroring a nationwide struggle between progressive and establishment liberals” and is the first African American to represent Washington State and the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress.

In this first episode of 2021, Matt interviews Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley based futurist, about long term trends and their impacts on our cities and workplaces. Paul places COVID-19 in perspective and talks about the trends affecting our global civilization, impacts on the real estate business, and the opportunities for the real estate industry “to become good ancestors” through our work in the built environment. This is a look forward — way forward – with the end of COVID in sight and the beginning of new times following 2020.

For the final episode of 2020, Matt speaks with Nancy Lashine, Managing Partner of Park Madison Partners and host of the podcast series, “Innovations in Real Estate”. Matt and Nancy interview each other about their respective careers, highlights from their podcasts, and current wisdom from their respective businesses. Nancy talks about the current drivers for institutional capital into real estate strategies from her perch as a capital raiser at Park Madison Partners and Matt talks about helping build teams and the need for talent in real estate organizations from his recruiting business at Terra Search Partners. This conversation is being released both on Leading Voices and on Nancy’s podcast, “Innovations in Real Estate”.Nancy is the Founder and Managing Partner of Park Madison Partners, a boutique real asset private equity placement firm. The firm is a leading advisor to investment management firms on their business strategy. Park Madison is headquartered in New York City and is a FINRA regulated broker dealer.Nancy has over 35 years of real estate and investment marketing experience. Prior to forming Park Madison Partners, Nancy was a strategic consultant advising leading institutional real estate investment managers on product development and the implementation of institutional marketing initiatives. Clients included Lehman Brothers, Angelo Gordon, ING Clarion, Sentinel Real Estate and JER Partners.Nancy was an early member of The O’Connor Group (1985-1995) and began her finance career at LF Rothschild, Unterberg and Towbin (1981-1985).Nancy earned her MBA at Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and a BFA, cum laude, from Case Western Reserve in Dance Theatre. She serves on several Boards including the Columbia MBA Real Estate Advisory Board, the Gibney Dance Center Board, and is a past board member of the Pension Real Estate Association. She is a member of ULI and WX (Executive Women in Real Estate).

During this episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, Matt interviews Alan Gold, Executive Chairman of IQHQ, a start-up real estate company serving the life sciences industry. The episode serves as a continued exploration of different niches within the real estate business — serving the biotech/life sciences field requires unique knowledge and relationships and brings a special set of challenges as well as opportunities. Alan is a serial entrepreneur, having been a co-founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities and then the founder and CEO of BioMed Realty Trust (and its predecessor), which sold to Blackstone in 2016. He is now the Executive Chairman of both IQHQ, started in February of this year, as well as of Innovative Industrial Properties, the only NYSE cannabis REIT. In addition to drilling down on the life sciences real estate business, Matt and Alan talk about the benefits of specialization and of “bringing the band back together” in his companies.Prior to IQHQ, Alan founded Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. in 2016, the first publicly-traded REIT that provides real estate capital to the medical-use cannabis industry, and he currently serves as its Executive Chairman, a position he has held since its formation. Paul Smithers, CEO of Innovative Industrial Properties, was on Leading Voices in 2019.Additionally, Alan served as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of BioMed, a REIT specializing in acquiring, leasing, developing and managing laboratory and office space for the life science industry, from its inception in 2004 through the sale of the company to Blackstone in January 2016. Alan also served as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of BioMed’s privately-held predecessor, Bernardo Property Advisors, Inc., from 1998 until 2004. In addition, Alan was a co-founder and served as President and a director of Alexandria, an urban office REIT, from its predecessor’s inception in 1994 until 1998. Alan served as Managing Partner of GoldStone Real Estate Finance and Investments, a partnership engaged in the real estate and mortgage business, from 1989 to 1994.Alan currently serves as a member of the board of trustees for the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, a research organization dedicated to fundamental research in biology and its relation to health. Alan received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration and his Master of Business Administration from San Diego State University.

MultiGreen made a big splash in early 2020 at the World Economic Forum’s 50th Annual Meeting in Davos, announcing its intention to build 40,000 units of attainable, sustainable, tech-enabled workforce housing apartments over the next ten years. In this episode, Matt talks with MultiGreen Founder and Chairman, Randy Norton, who is leading this new venture towards this audacious and important goal. MultiGreen is backed by 60 of the world’s wealthiest families via its partnership with i(x) investments, an impact investment firm that is bringing long term investment to address major social problems like the housing crisisRandy has more than 20 years of real estate experience, namely Real Estate Development and Construction, Building Information Modeling (BIM), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Smartgrid Cogeneration and Renewable Energy with Intelligent Building IoT. Randy is also a Managing Partner, the Global Head of Real Estate and Alternative Investments at Green Mesa Capital, a single family office based in Henderson, Nevada. Additionally, he currently serves as a Trustee for the City of Henderson Nevada Public Improvement Trust, and is an Advisory Council Member at the UNLV Lee Business School-Lied Institute for Real Estate.Randy is a member of the CAIA Association, CCIM Institute, CFA Institute, Construction Financial Management Association, Institute of Real Estate Management, Sustainable Accounting Standards Board, ULI Greenprint Center for Building Performance, U.S. Green Building Council, and is a Founding Executive Member of the Institute for Real Estate Operating Companies.Randy is a frequent speaker, moderator, and panelist, at industry events, including CalALTs, CAIA, CFA, CFMA, Connex, Context, Crittenden, iGlobal, IMN, IPI Campden, Linkbridge, Markets Group, Marcus Evans, Opal, Super Returns, select Universities, and is an annual ULI PwC Emerging Trends in Real Estate Interviewee.After graduating with University Honors in Korean and Business from Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management, Randy completed executive programs at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and Columbia Business School-Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing. Randy was previously published in the Real Estate Finance Journal, Forbes, GreenSights, GuruFocus, Yahoo! Finance, and is Author of the pending book: “Applied Value Investing in Real Estate.”

Sheryl Palmer, Chairman and CEO of Taylor Morrison Home Corporation, joins as our second leading voice within the homebuilding industry (after Larry Webb, CEO of the New Home Company). Taylor Morrison is one of the nation’s top-ranked public homebuilders, following the company’s IPO in 2013, which Sheryl oversaw. With her college studies in special education and a career start in the sales and marketing department at McDonald’s, Sheryl shares how she came into the homebuilding business and how these prior, non-real estate experiences have influenced her consumer-first approach to the business. Additionally, we talk about Taylor Morrison and the homebuilding industry’s response to COVID-19 and her prognosis for the sector going forward. Throughout the conversation, Sheryl demonstrates candidness, both as an executive leader in business and in her non-work life, even sharing her personal experience with a life-threatening illness.Sheryl has overseen Taylor Morrison, the Scottsdale, Arizona based homebuilder, since 2007. Sheryl has the organization dedicated to implementing a business strategy focused on three priorities: pursuing strategic growth opportunities to deliver benefits of scale; enhanced operational excellence to drive company-wide efficiencies; and differentiating the customer experience Taylor Morrison provides all team members and homebuyers. Under Sheryl’s leadership, Taylor Morrison has been successful in creating trustworthy relationships with both its internal and external customers. In 2018, the company was named America’s Most Trusted Home Builder for the third consecutive year by Lifestory Research, and a Top 100 Best Places to Work by Glassdoor.Sheryl has spent most of her early career in the Arizona, California and Nevada real estate markets. Prior to Taylor Morrison, Sheryl served as Nevada Area President for Pulte and Del Webb after finishing 10 years as division president at Blackhawk Corporation, a builder of active adult communities based in northern California.Sheryl’s passions extend beyond homebuilding and enter the many realms of: parenthood, including her three children and four grandchildren; leadership and diversity; supporting veterans; solving for homelessness; and health and wellness.Sheryl is currently serving as the 2019-2020 Chairman of the National Board of Directors of HomeAid America, is on the Board of Directors of Interface Inc. and is an Executive Committee Member of the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) Policy Advisory Board at Harvard University. She is also the Chairman of the Board for the Building Talent Foundation, a non-profit division of Leading Builders of America.

Today Matt interviews David Schless, the President of the American Seniors Housing Association, to discuss the impact of COVID on seniors housing and his thoughts on the future of this business post-pandemic. The first hot spot for COVID in the US was at a nursing home in Washington State; the seniors housing industry has been at the forefront in responding to the crisis for its vulnerable residents and its workers on the front lines. David discusses the tremendous response of the industry and the future of the seniors housing business, for which the demographic trends continue to suggest significant growth and opportunity.David has served as ASHA’s President since its creation by the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) in 1991. With over 30 years of industry experience, David has an extensive understanding of seniors housing research, policy and regulatory issues, and an intimate knowledge of the seniors housing business. He is currently involved with the Alzheimer’s Association Brain Ball Committee, the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures, the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living at Washington State University and serves on the editorial board of the Seniors Housing & Care Journal. David has been honored as a Distinguished Alumnus by both the University of Connecticut and the University of North Texas for his work on behalf of seniors.David holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the Center for Aging and Human Development at the University of Connecticut, and a Master of Science degree from the Department of Applied Gerontology/Center for Studies in Aging at the University of North Texas.

In our Leading Voices in Real Estate season five premiere, Matt is rejoined by Tammy Jones, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Basis Investment Group, a real estate investment manager primarily focused on debt and structured equity strategies. Tammy was a participant on the Black Voices in Real Estate episode released in June, where she shared her experience as a Black woman in the real estate industry and the opportunities for change in racial equity in our business. Now four months later, this episode continues with a discussion on whether the Black Lives Matter moment offers a temporary or permanent path towards inclusion in our business. Tammy also shares her experience building a career as a Black woman in the business and starting Basis Investment Group as one of the few certified Minority and Woman-Owned Businesses in real estate investment management. Tammy tells us her career journey, from becoming the first female in her family to attend college to founding her own business.Now at 80+ episodes of Leading Voices in Real Estate and in the fall of this year-to-remember, we are embarking on a new Season Five of the podcast. Through the entire Leading Voices series, we have had the opportunity to share the career journeys and countless stories from people, across the wide range of the real estate industry, who have built great companies and made a difference in our built environment. In this time of COVID, social and political change especially around social equity, and new realities quickening around climate change, the impacts on, and responsibilities from, the real estate business are enormous. We will continue, through our conversations in this season of Leading Voices to both tell the career and leadership journeys and lessons that have always been a part of Leading Voices alongside discussions around these real topics deeply affecting our industry. Thanks to our long time listeners for joining us in these conversations.

In honor of John Stewart’s memory, we are rebroadcasting his Leading Voices interview from December 2018. John passed away last week after a two-year battle with cancer. He was the founder of The John Stewart Company, a developer of low and mixed-income housing and the country’s 6th largest manager of affordable housing. John was a personal friend of Matt’s and an inspiration throughout his career. He views John as one of the Bay Area’s leading voices who was a tireless advocate across the range of social justice issues, particularly around low-income housing and the challenges of our current politics. John was a generous mentor to many with an inimitable voice and perspective; we are pleased to share this episode again. John will be sorely missed and deeply remembered.From original release:John Stewart is the Founder and Chair of the John Stewart Company, a San Francisco-based owner, developer, and manager of affordable and mixed-income housing, founded in 1978 with three employees.From Aerospace to Affordable HousingJohn grew up in California, graduating from Stanford in 1956 with a liberal arts degree and a focus on history and finance. When he was recruited by U.S. Steel, he moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles but found that the large corporate culture wasn’t a good fit for his entrepreneurial mindset. He switched to TRW as a young management trainee and moved in 1964 to Houston to join TRW’s new offices at the Johnson Space Center.“In careers, once in a while there’s sort of a choice point… we saw the astronauts and NASA up close and personal, but I was also interested in finding out about life in a Southern city.”John showed up as an out-of-towner at the Houston Council on Human Relations to see how he could help and get involved. He joined its low-income housing committee and soon became Chair. His activism quickly caught the Mayor’s attention, who requested that TRW fund a paid leave and lend John to the city for a year to chair the City’s Citizen’s Committee on Affordable Housing. TRW agreed.Founding John Stewart CompanyJohn became so interested in housing that when his year was up, that he headed back to Los Angeles with TRW and encouraged them to apply for HUD’s (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) Operation Breakthrough for manufactured housing.TRW was selected, and built nearly a thousand modular affordable housing units in Sacramento and New Mexico; however, manufactured housing was not profitable and John decided to make an offer to acquire 500 units of section 236 multi-family housing from TRW, and the John Stewart Company was born.“One of the few things I did right was plan for capital losses. Every start-up book I read said the dominant reason for failure in small businesses is undercapitalization, so I assumed two years of losses and that’s what it was.”John shares how he capitalized on other’s mistakes by buying and investing in properties that were about to go into assignment or foreclosure. In the process he built trust with HUD. When President Ronald Reagan implemented the low-income tax-credit program in 1984, he began using these credits as an alternative method of financing.“I’ve found that if you are just doing management, particularly low income, with a lot of challenging residents, you don’t last long… it helps to have another line of work, and that would be the development side, the acquisition, the rehab.”In the last 15 years, the company has gone beyond acquisition to also develop new construction projects. John shares that he especially likes working with non-profit corporations in joint ventures because they complement one another.And while he admits that he has had deals that go sideways – there is always a risk – everyone he works with wants to build products that are architecturally attractive and “pencil out.” This is what makes working in this industry fulfilling.After 25 years John sold his company to Southern California Edison. In another choice point, after 5 years he bought it back mainly due to differing views on the company mission. Now, John is proud to have partners that he works with who have been with him for years and who he trusts completely.Tackling HomelessnessWhile others may argue it’s a waste of money, John emphasizes the importance of creating good-looking, market quality housing for low-income people.“My argument is that form and function are connected. You build a schlock product, people will treat it like a schlock product. You build something elegant, they treat it well, with respect, and your turnover is less.”John has found this approach has also helped change the perspective of neighborhoods who are initially opposed to development. When they encounter this dynamic, they bring doubtful prospective tenants and neighbors inside other John Stewart Company Developments to give them a palpable sense of what the new residence will be. Once the tenants and surrounding residents talk to the management, see the quality of the space, the screenings of residents, and the security, it has a very positive effect.ChallengeIf you’re in the affordable housing business with a purely financial bent, then this isn’t your cup of tea. But if you’re comfortable with moderate, reasonable returns, and can accept the risk, this is for you. At the end of the day, you’ve created an attractive physical product that’s a difference-maker in society.

In honor of Gerald Hines’ legacy, we are rebroadcasting his interview from the spring of 2018. Mr. Hines passed away last week at the age of 95, having inspired generations of leaders in the real estate industry. He founded Hines in 1957 as a developer of office properties and has built some of the most iconic city landscapes in Houston, London, San Francisco, and other major cities around the globe. Hines is renowned for not only creating the highest quality buildings in the market but for partnering with the world’s best architects. Mr. Hines’ leadership within the company and the greater real estate community will be sorely missed.Gerald Hines | Industry Legend, Developer, and VisionaryGerald Hines founded his business in 1957 as a developer of office properties. His namesake company now has a presence in 201 cities and 24 countries, and manages over $110 billion in property. Hines is renowned for not only creating the highest quality buildings in the market, but for partnering with the world’s best architects.The Beginning:Born in Gary, IN in 1925, Hines was the child of parents who came on a boat from Nova Scotia. Growing up, he ran cross country and track and is proud to share that his team won the city championships. He entered college at Purdue early, completing 3 semesters of studies before joining the Army at 18.While in the service, he was part of the Army Corps of Engineers, and his travels introduced him to the inspiring architecture in Seattle and Tacoma.After the Army, Hines returned to school to complete his Mechanical Engineering degree and spent some time selling engineering equipment.He made the leap to development when his neighbor needed a building for 5,000 square feet and Hines said, “let me build it.” This catapulted his career and he began working with larger companies and properties.Growth:“We just evolved… the brokers seemed to get the fact that we had a very high hit rate and so that attracted the better brokers to us with their projects, and quality and good value sustained our entry into that.”The timing was perfect, as Texas was expanding and companies were moving there, so there was a lot of new construction. Hines’ reputation for quality and straight shooting helped them grow.Hines recalls his first big project for Shell, building their new headquarters in Texas. He worked with architect Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill on it, and for the pitch, they used a fancy German lock set to denote the quality of the project they were going to create – and they won. He went on to work with architects like Phillip Johnson on Pennzoil, and create iconic buildings like New York City’s Lipstick building, The Galleria in Houston, and the Marche St. Germain in France.Business Culture:Hines emphasizes the importance of a strong business culture, rooted in integrity.“I think our (team) all realize what integrity means and we stand by our word. We treat people fairly and that’s very important to all of us.”Episode LinksThe Hines WebsiteRaising the Bar: The Life and Work of Gerald D. Hines

In this episode, Matt discusses the retail sector with Ken Bernstein, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acadia Realty Trust. Ken talks about the fundamental reworking of the sector due to what he terms the “Retail Armageddon,” a trend that was taking place well before Covid. They also discuss the long-term trends of retail and the additional impacts Covid may have on the retail sector. Acadia Realty Trust specializes in the acquisition, redevelopment, and management of retail properties with an ownership interest in over 100 properties totaling approximately $4 billion in value.Ken co-founded Acadia in 1998. Acadia is also the manager of a series of discretionary institutional acquisition funds. Acadia is currently investing on behalf its Fund V, which is capitalized to acquire $1.5 billion dollars of retail properties.Along with his responsibilities at Acadia, Ken is a past Trustee of the Board of Trustees of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and served as the 2017/2018 Chairman. Ken served as Chief Operating Officer of RD Capital until its merger with Mark Centers Trust in 1998, creating Acadia Realty Trust. Prior to that, Ken was an associate with the New York law firm of Battle Fowler, LLP.Ken received his BA from the University of Vermont and his JD from Boston University School of Law. In addition to being a member of the World President’s Organization (YPO-WPO), where he was the founding chairman of the Real Estate Network, he currently sits on the Board of Advisors. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Golub Capital (NASDAQ:GBDC).

Conor Dougherty is an Economics and Housing Reporter at The New York Times who recently published Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America. His book explores the housing affordability crisis by weaving stories from the front lines of real estate development, investment, struggling families, government officials, and both NIMBYs and YIMBYs in California. This interview provides the perspective of an outside observer of the real estate industry thinking about the roots of the lack of adequate supply and development, the dynamics of real estate investment, and potential solutions to create more housing. Conor articulates the complexity of the problem, understanding the combination of deep emotions and interests that bring wildly different perspectives around real estate.He has been reporting on business and economics for two decades and previously worked at The Wall Street Journal and San Diego Union-Tribune. Dougherty lives in Oakland with his wife and two children.

Andy Cohen is the Co-CEO of Gensler, the leading global design firm, which includes 6,300+ people networked across 50 offices and serving clients in 120+ countries. He joins Matt for another interview in our series of conversations on leadership in the real estate space amidst the Covid crisis. With his global perspective, Andy shares his thoughts on what the office landscape may look like both in our current constrained return to work and post-vaccine, the future and potential reinvention of cities post-pandemic, and how a senior leader has responded within his company to Covid and issues surrounding equity in the workplace.This episode is the first of Leading Voices in Real Estate that returns to a company as Matt interviewed Art Gensler, Founder of Gensler, in November 2018.

This is a special episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate featuring conversations with six Black real estate leaders, each of whom speaks with Matt about their personal experiences and their thoughts on how our industry can address inequalities and systemic racism in our companies, our work in the built environment, and in the real estate sector broadly.Featured GuestsTammy K. Jones, Co-Founder & CEO | Basis Investment GroupSince 2009, Tammy has served as both Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Basis Investment Group, a multi-strategy commercial real estate investment platform she founded with JEMB Realty Corporation that acquires and originates a variety of senior and subordinated loans, preferred equity and joint venture equity positions on behalf of its investors. Under her leadership, Basis has succeeded in closing nearly $2.7 billion in commercial real estate debt and structured equity-related investments across the United States. Tammy has more than 24 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry, investing and lending on CRE assets her entire career on behalf of large pension funds and institutional investors including Equitable Real Estate, GMACCM, and CWCapital.Daryl Carter, Chairman & CEO | Avanath Capital ManagementDaryl is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Avanath Capital Management, a California-based investment firm that acquires, renovates, and operates apartment properties, with an emphasis on affordable and workforce communities. He directs the overall strategy and operations of the Company. Since its formation in 2008, Avanath has acquired $2.5 billion of properties in 13 states in the U.S., comprising 10,000 apartment units.Tyrone Roderick Williams, Deputy Executive Director | Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment AgencyTyrone is the Deputy Executive Director at the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. His development activities have been at the forefront of affordable housing and comprehensive neighborhood transformation efforts in Boston, Houston, Atlanta and Sacramento. His experience includes leading developments in the for-profit, nonprofit, philanthropic and government sectors. He is an industry leader in affordable housing finance, community development, organizational management, and cross-sector collaborations. He directs the affordable housing, community development and project financing activities for the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, Sacramento Housing Authority, Sacramento County Housing authority, the City of Sacramento and Sacramento County.Robin Hughes, President & CEO | Abode CommunitiesRobin Hughes is President and Chief Executive Officer of Abode Communities, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit architect, developer, manager and operator of service-enhanced affordable housing. She has been actively involved in affordable housing and community development for over 30 years and in her 23 years as leader of Abode Communities, Hughes has transformed the organization into an Affordable Housing Finance Top 50 Developer nationwide and the premier provider of environmentally sustainable affordable housing in California.Bill Whitlow, Partner | Terra Search PartnersBill pairs his twenty-five-year tenure in commercial real estate with the past twelve years he’s worked as Partner at Terra Search Partners, a national executive search firm focused exclusively on the real estate industry. He provides both Terra and his clients with deep industry insights and context across a broad spectrum of senior and executive-level real estate functions including senior-level finance and capital markets, organizational structure and strategy, asset and property management, acquisitions, development and leasing roles.Cedric Bobo, Co-Founder & CEO | Project DestinedCedric Bobo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Project Destined, a social impact vehicle that trains urban youth and military veterans to be owners and stakeholders in the communities in which they live, work and play. Prior to founding Project Destined, Cedric spent over 20 years as an investor and investment banker including over 10 years at the The Carlyle Group where he committed over $2 Billion of equity capital. In 2015, Cedric was named to the“10 Top Powerful Black People on Wall Street You Should Know.”ResourcesArticlesBeyond “Best Efforts”: Why Commercial Real Estate Needs to Catch Up on Diversity (Featured in UrbanLand by Kirk Sikes, Evan Mitchell, and Sommer Heyman)Catalyst’s Action Plan (By Jordan Moss, Founder of Catalyst Housing Group)PodcastWhy Ta-Nehisi Coates is Hopeful (Featured in Vox by Ezra Klein)OrganizationsThe Real Estate Executive CouncilThe Toigo FoundationVideosCommunities in Crisis and a Call to Action: A Conversation with Doug Bibby and Daryl Carter (National Multifamily Housing Council)I Am Not Your Negro (2016 Documentary Directed By Raoul Peck)BookThe Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (By Richard Rothstein)Leading Voices in Real Estate has tried to present conversations with leaders in the real estate world from a diverse set of backgrounds, with different perspectives, and from all sectors of the industry. We will be working to bring more leaders of color into the conversation and will be thinking, with all of our guests, how our industry can better address inequities internally within our companies and in the work that we do.

Mary Ludgin is one of the best big-picture, strategic minds in the commercial real estate investment business. She is the Head of Global Research at Heitman, a global real estate investment management firm with $45.5 billion in assets under management. The initial interview focused mostly on the effects of COVID on the built environment, with a fascinating discussion on ripples of the COVID crisis post-vaccine, both from a national and global perspective. Recorded a week prior to the George Floyd killing and the resulting national outcry, Matt had a follow-up conversation with Mary on June 3rd to discuss issues relating to social and racial equity in our country, the current unrest, and opportunities for the real estate industry to do better.Mary is Heitman’s Senior Managing Director, Head of Global Research and an equity owner of the firm. She is a member of the firm’s Board of Managers, Global Management Committee, North American Private Equity Valuation Committee, and Private Equity and Debt Investment Committees. She is the author of numerous articles and research studies relating to real estate markets, portfolio management and strategy. Prior to joining Heitman, she was an urban planner for the City of Chicago and she worked in retail site location.Mary received an AB from Vassar College and an MA and PhD from Northwestern University. She is a Governing Trustee of the Urban Land Institute and sits on its Global Board of Directors. Mary also chairs ULI’s Chicago District Council. Among other professional affiliations, she served two terms on the board of the Pension Real Estate Association and was its president. Mary is also a former president of the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. She was named a fellow of the Homer Hoyt Institute in 2000, is a docent for the Chicago Architecture Foundation and is a member of the board of the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago.Leading Voices in Real Estate has tried to present conversations with leaders in the real estate world from a diverse set of backgrounds, with different perspectives, and from all sectors of the industry. We will be working to bring more leaders of color into the conversation and will be thinking, with all of our guests, how our industry can better address inequities internally within our companies and in the work that we do.

Amy Rose, President and CEO of Rose Associates, joins Matt for this week’s Leading Voices in Real Estate interview. Rose Associates is one of the largest, most storied apartment owners and managers in New York City with over $15 billion of assets under management and over 17,000 units owned or operated. Amy is a third-generation leader of this company originally founded by her grandfather and great uncle and is Rose Associate’s first female CEO. Most of the podcast is a deep dive into how her firm is dealing on a day-to-day basis with the COVID-19 crisis in the highly impacted New York market. Her insight provides commentary on the importance of civic leadership during Covid, the responsibility of owners and developers to their tenants and community, and the resilience of New York City to bounce back from this crisis. Additionally, the episode concludes with Amy sharing her unique real estate story, including the history of the family company and the importance of female leadership in the industry.Amy is responsible for managing the company, formulating and executing long-term strategies, sourcing new business, capital and investments, and driving the company’s focus on acquiring and adapting high quality assets. Under her direction, the firm has completed over $2.24 billion in acquisition and development projects in the last five years. Additionally, she oversees the Rose property management and operations platform which delivers a full range of services designed to increase revenue and enhance asset value for over 14,000 units in the New York marketplace. During her tenure, Rose Associates became one of the region’s top property management firms with a primary focus on rental properties.Amy is a frequent speaker in premier professional conferences and participates as a guest lecturer at The NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate and Columbia Business School. She was recognized by Bisnow as one of the 2018 and 2019 New York Power Women and Real Estate Forum named her as one of the 2016 Women of Influence.Amy holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Michigan. She serves on the Board of Directors of Griffin Industrial Realty, Inc. and The Real Estate Roundtable as well as the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee of The Real Estate Board of New York. She is an active member of Urban Land Institute, The Young Men’s/ Women’s Real Estate Association of New York, WX, New York Women Executives in Real Estate and The Young Presidents’ Organization. Amy serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of Literature, Science and Arts and the Ross Real Estate Advisory Board at the University of Michigan. She is a Member of the Board of Directors of The Jewish Museum.

This week’s episode features a real estate legend: Leonard Wood, the Founder and Former CEO of Wood Partners, one of the nation’s leading apartment builders. Since Leonard founded Wood Partners in 1998, the company has developed over 79,000 homes with a combined value of more than $14.1 billion. Additionally, he is the Founder of the Leonard Wood Center for Real Estate Studies as a part of the Kenan-Flagler Business School. In this episode, Leonard talks about leadership lessons learned and important values for the real estate industry. Leonard also addresses potential issues for the next generation of real estate leaders as the industry moves into a post COVID world of urban development.In 2013, Leonard retired and merged GLJ Partners, a southern California apartment development company he founded in 2008, into Trammell Crow Residential. That same year, he joined the Advisory Board of Trammell Crow Residential where he continues to serve today. Before the inception of GLJ Partners, Leonard founded Wood Partners, LLC in 1998. Wood Partners was the largest multi-family builder in the U.S. in 2004, the 3rd largest in 2005, and the 6th largest in 2006 according to Builder Magazine. Leonard retired as CEO of Wood Partners in 2007, but continued to serve on the Board of Directors through the end of 2013.Prior to founding Wood Partners, Leonard joined Trammell Crow Residential (“TCR”) as Partner in charge of North Florida in 1982. During Leonard’s tenure at TCR, he was responsible for the Southeast, Texas, Midwest, and Southwest Regions and started over 54,000 multi-family units representing an investment of more than $2.5 billion. In October of 1996, Homegate Hospitality, Inc. (“Homegate”) had its Initial Public Offering. Homegate combined TCR’s development capabilities with Wyndham Hotel Company’s management expertise to create an extended-stay hotel chain. Leonard was on the Board of Directors of Homegate. In December of 1997, Homegate merged with Prime Hospitality, a New York Stock Exchange lodging company. Subsequently, Prime sold to Marriott.Leonard is a 1972 University of North Carolina M.B.A. graduate, with an undergraduate degree from N.C. State University in 1968. As an Audit Manager with Arthur Andersen & Co., Leonard had an extensive real estate clientele, including Brandermill and Fripp Island.Leonard is a former Chairman and served on the Multifamily Leadership Board of NAHB. He also is a former Chairman and served on the Board of Directors of the National Multifamily Housing Council. Leonard is a past Governor, Trustee, and Chairman of the Multifamily Council of the Urban Land Institute. He is active in numerous charities with a particular focus on education. He has also been active with various wounded warrior programs. His youngest son, Kevin, served two tours in Iraq. He also serves on the Board of Visitors of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. In 2001, Leonard received the MBA Alumni Merit Award from the University of North Carolina. In 2007, Leonard founded the Wood Center for Real Estate Studies as a part of the Kenan-Flagler Business School and is the current Chairman of its Advisory Board. In 2018, he was awarded the Davie Award, the highest award a UNC alumni can receive. He formerly served on the Board of the Darlington School. He was also a Board member of Cole Credit Property Trust III, Inc. and Cole Corporate Income Trust, Inc. Leonard served on the Board of the Ocean Reef Club, the largest private club in the world. He is a Past President of Card Sound Golf Club in Key Largo, Florida.

As we enter the second month of the Covid-19 lockdown, Matt met with longtime industry colleague and friend Doug Bibby, President of the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), the leading trade association for the apartment industry. In addition to discussing the implications of the national crisis on the multifamily housing, Matt and Doug unwrap the significant evolution of the apartment industry over the past two decades. The conversation with Doug provides prior context of the multifamily housing industry, shares resources and strategies that the industry is implementing during the crisis including NMHC’s Rent Tracker, and the industry’s continued agenda around affordable housing, fighting NIMBYism, rent control, and overall housing supply.The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) is a national organization of more than 1,400 member firms involved in the nearly $2 trillion multifamily housing industry. Under Doug’s leadership NMHC represents the industry on Capitol Hill and before the regulatory agencies, promotes research and the exchange of information, and advocates for rental housing across a broad spectrum of issues. Prior to joining NMHC, Doug spent 16 years as a senior officer of Fannie Mae, where he served on the company’s Management Committee throughout his tenure. He was part of the top management team that is credited with the remarkable turnaround at Fannie Mae in the book Good to Great.Doug began his career with the worldwide communications firm J. Walter Thompson where he served a variety of clients both domestically and internationally over his 12-year career with the company. At the time of his departure from J. Walter Thompson, he was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the firm’s Washington, D.C. operations. He has been active in the non-profit community of Washington, D.C. for the past 30 years.Doug graduated from Denison University with a B.A. degree and was honored with the university’s Alumni Citation Award in 2004. He also holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

With so much uncertainty in the world due to Covid-19, Matt sat down (virtually) with Spencer Levy, Chairman, Americas Research & Senior Economic Advisor at CBRE, on March 24 to discuss the impact this crisis has across all sectors of commercial real estate. This is a special episode focused on Covid-19, versus our ongoing conversations which are geared towards leadership and the business of our guests. Spencer outlines the potential implications the pandemic has across various sectors including multifamily, retail, industrial, and office and digs into the impacts on a few specialty product types like co-working, seniors housing, data centers, and self-storage. The discussion provides commentary on the immediate response while touching on potential short-term and long-term effects this may have on real estate and the world economy, taking a globalized approach and looking at current government response.In addition to the conversation about Covid-19, Spencer introduces CBRE’s Global Outlook 2030 report and acknowledges that while there will be immediate and short-term impacts on commercial real estate, addressed trends likely will continue into the decade. Some of these trends include the global adoption of U.S.-style institutional ownership and management of multifamily communities and widespread automation of commercial real estate valuation services.Spencer Levy is the Chairman of Americas Research and Senior Economic Advisor for CBRE, the largest commercial real estate firm in the world. Spencer is the chief spokesman on real estate matters for CBRE in the Americas. He is regularly quoted in major business publications and frequently is a guest on business television, including Bloomberg, CNBC, PBS and Fox Business. He is widely considered one of the finest commentators in the entire Commercial Real Estate industry.By leveraging his 23 years of experience in commercial real estate, including the past 11 at CBRE, Spencer has redefined the role of research leader. Spencer combines his experience as a lawyer, investment banker and capital markets leader to create presentations that go deep and touch on all aspects of commercial real estate. Combined with his unique and engaging presenting style, this makes him one of the most respected commentators and advisors in the business. Spencer regularly speaks at major events of the country’s leading commercial real estate organizations, including CORENET, NAIOP, ULI, ICSC, NAREIM and CREW. He also has guest lectured at major universities, including his alma maters Harvard and Cornell, in addition to Columbia, NYU, Johns Hopkins, Indiana, Georgetown, Pitt, Auburn and many others. Spencer is a recipient of multiple industry awards, including the CORENET Luminary Award for Excellence in Public Speaking, the CBRE Trammell Crow Master Builder Award, the CBRE Gary J. Bebon Teamwork Award, the CBRE Capital Markets “MVP”, and was named a State of Maryland Influencer in Real Estate.While a New Yorker for most of his life, Spencer currently hails from Baltimore and is a proud husband of 19 years and father of three children. Spencer sits on the boards of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women and Harvard Alumni Real Estate.We hope that you enjoy this episode and find the conversation to be helpful as you are navigating the crisis in your personal lives as well as in your business endeavors.

This week, Matt interviews Maria Hawthorne, President and CEO of PS Business Parks, where has been for over three decades. She started at the ground floor in a temporary position at Public Storage, the company’s parent, and moved up the ranks at PS Business Parks from running the East Coast, to Chief Administrative Officer, then President, and now to her current role as CEO in 2016. PS Business Parks is a REIT that acquires, develops, owns, and operates commercial properties, primarily multi-tenant industrial, flex, and office space. The company owns over 27.5 million rentable square feet concentrated in six states and has recently started the redevelopment of some of its office parks into mixed-use properties, primarily multifamily. Throughout her career, Maria had to carefully create a track record and build relationships to experience her growth within the company.Highlights from the EpisodeMaria carefully built a positive track record starting with her temp role at Public Storage to cultivating relationships and growth within her company.Maria is vulnerable and honest. She shared about a reset time at the company when the CEO sent her to the Center for Creative Leadership where she took a deep dive on what it would take to move herself up and into leadership.Maria found success through a long career at one company.

Recorded in front of an audience at a ULI Young Leaders event in Los Angeles, Matt sat down with Ricardo Pagan, Founder and CEO of Claridge Properties, a 100% minority-owned real estate investment and development firm.Born in the Dominican Republic, Ricardo emigrated to the U.S. when he was nine and is now a self-made entrepreneur in real estate under the age of 40. His path to success is different than other leaders featured on this podcast.Ricardo never attended a four-year college and started buying houses in his late teens and developing properties in his 20s. This eventually led to developing institutional deals, like the historic Westin Book Cadillac Detroit and 4-acre Brooklyn waterfront deal in Greenpoint. He is part of a partnership selected by the Los Angeles City Council to acquire and develop the coveted Angels Landing site, a $1.2 billion project that will eventually be the largest residential tower west of the Mississippi River.Throughout his career, he has completed well over $1 Billion in acquisitions and development of assets in New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit, Atlanta, and Phoenix encompassing well over 3,500 residential units and over 500,000 SF of office space.

This week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate features Alex Mehran Sr., the Chairman of the Board of Sunset Development Company and the immediate past Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Sunset Development was founded in 1951 by Alex’s father who had emigrated from Iran, and today it is in its third generation of leadership, run by Alex’s son. Under Alex’s leadership, the company acquired and developed Bishop Ranch, a 585-acre mixed-use community in the Bay Area with best-in-class offices, retail, and entertainment. The development includes over 9.5 million square feet in workspace for 30,000 employees with 600 tenants including IBM, AT&T, Chevron, and GE Digital. Matt and Alex discuss the constant evolution of suburban office park developments, the successes of a multi-generational family business, and Alex’s civic leadership roles.Alex is a San Francisco Bay Area native. He graduated from Harvard College with honors and continued his higher education at Cambridge University in England where he earned a Law Degree, also with honors. After completing his formal education, Alex joined J. P. Morgan of New York where, for three years, he managed real estate companies and assets owned by the Bank. Shortly after, Alex joined Sunset Development in 1977.Beyond his civic engagement with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Alex is the Chairman of the Contra Costa Economic Partnership, a Trustee of the California Institute of Technology and a member of the International Council of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Alex has two adult children. He and his wife, Carolyn, live in San Francisco.

Ben Harris, CEO of Link Industrial Properties, Blackstone’s industrial sector operating platform, joins us for this week’s episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate. In this episode, we dive into the drivers of the robust industrial sector, especially how the overall secular changes in retail, logistics, and distribution are driving a re-make of the industrial real estate business. We also discuss Blackstone’s approach to Link and its businesses in other real estate sectors, both from the investment and operating angles, and the extraordinary growth of the Link platform from a start up to a 355-million square foot business in just over a year. And as always, we talk about Ben and his career path into this role.

With almost 40 years under his belt at Wells Fargo, Mark Myers is the bank’s Head of Commercial Real Estate. Under his leadership, Wells Fargo has been the #1 commercial real estate lender for the last 10 years. As a longtime leader in this space along with his upcoming retirement in February 2020, Mark shares his perspective on the vast changes in the real estate capital markets over this period and reflects on his career. He also expands on his outlook of the current markets and what he sees is a stable infrastructure moving forward for the business.

Our first episode in 2020 features Amy Price, Managing Partner and Co-Head of the U.S. business for BentallGreenOak. After the recent merger between Bentall Kennedy and Green Oak, which she helped orchestrate, the company has grown to become a $48B real estate investment manager with a global footprint. Amy is a senior leader in the real estate investment management business. We talk about overall trends and challenges in this sector and how she has navigated and built her career, first at Morgan Stanley and now at BGO.Amy has responsibility for the operating and financial performance of BGO U.S. business and has direct oversight of transactions, asset management, and portfolio management. Amy focuses her time on the Core, Core Plus and Development parts of the business. Amy chairs the U.S. Investment Committee for BGO Diversified and Separate Account Clients, co-chairs the U.S. Management Committee, and is a member of the BGO Global Coordination Committee.Prior to joining BentalGreenOak in 2012, Amy was a Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Investing for the Western United States at Morgan Stanley, where she was an Investment Committee member and built the real estate investment management business in San Francisco. Amy also spent time in Morgan Stanley’s New York and Hong Kong offices.Amy is Board Chair of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers (NAREIM) and member of the Urban Land Institute Global Board of Directors in addition to being a Governing Trustee of ULI. She holds an MBA with Distinction from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated magna cum laude from Colgate University.

David Brickman was appointed CEO of Freddie Mac in July 2019. He has been with the company for over two decades, previously serving as a longtime leader of its multifamily division. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Freddie’s sister GSE, have both been in government conservatorship for eleven years and there finally seems to be a feasible pathway back to private status. In this interview, David dives deep about his leadership of Freddie’s multifamily group and his rise within the organization based on his innovations, particularly in the area of securitization and housing affordability.A unique aspect of this episode is that most Leading Voices in Real Estate guests are founders or early generation leaders of companies. Due to the nature of the GSEs, there has been a lineage of chief executives before David. Freddie Mac makes housing possible for millions of families and individuals by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Since the creation by Congress in 1970, they’ve made housing more accessible and affordable for homebuyers and renters in communities nationwide. As aforementioned, in 2008 the U.S. government placed the GSEs into conservatorship, which included additional oversight for the CEO, the role David now assumes.David’s interest in real estate began at an early age, growing up in Lower Manhattan in the 1970s. During this time, he saw the empty lots start to turn into housing, offices, and retail, and he would take the subway up to the Bronx each day for high school, where he would see different urban landscapes and substantial changes happening to the city.Following his undergraduate degree, David ran a not for profit community development corporation in New York when he was only 22. He left New York to earn a master’s degree in public policy, and subsequently moved to D.C. where he worked as a consultant and pursued a Ph.D. in economics and real estate at MIT. David was approached by a colleague at Freddie Mac to join the organization full time in 1999.His first official role at Freddie Mac was senior vice president and vice president in charge of the Multifamily Capital Markets business area. In these positions, he oversaw all functions relating to Freddie Mac’s multifamily and CMBS investment and capital markets activities. He is the key architect behind several of Freddie Mac’s innovative multifamily financing products, including the Capital Markets Execution and K-Deal program, Reference Bill ARM, fixed-to-float suite of products, and Performance-Based PC, for which he holds a U.S. patent.He then was the head of Freddie Mac Multifamily, where he presided over a remarkable period of growth – raising annual production from $16 billion in 2010 to almost $80 billion in 2018 and increasing the organization from 300 staff members in four offices to approximately 1000 employees in a dozen locations across the country. He also firmly established the company’s flagship K-Deal Securitization program as one of the leading securitized products in the structured finance markets. Brickman also drove significant innovation and an expansion in Freddie Mac’s products and offerings – particularly those that serve the growing need for affordable and workforce housing.Most recently, David served as President of Freddie Mac and was responsible for all three of Freddie Mac’s business lines – Single-Family, Multifamily and Capital Markets – as well as the information technology and operations areas that support these business lines. When former CEO Don Layton was retiring, he approached David about pursuing the role, who saw it as fortuitous timing as he was ready for the next challenge.David completed all doctoral coursework for his Ph.D. in economics and real estate at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He has held appointments as a professorial lecturer of finance at The George Washington University and as an adjunct professor of finance at Johns Hopkins University.

As we wrap up Thanksgiving and head into the 2019 holiday season, we wanted to re-release an episode about hope, empowerment, and giving back with Cedric Bobo, Co-Founder of Project Destined. Project Destined is a social impact nonprofit that trains inner-city youth and military families to be active partners in sourcing and financing real estate investments. Students then receive a percentage of the profits from those investments in the form of scholarship funds.Cedric, who grew up in an underserved community in Memphis, became obsessed with business at a young age, inspired by his mother who worked for FedEx. He then received a degree in engineering, attended Harvard Business School, and spent the first part of his career in private equity, culminating in becoming an executive at Carlyle Group. Cedric has an entrepreneurial spirit, and he wanted to combine his two passions of investment and social impact, which drove him to create Project Destined in 2016. Today the program is in 7 cities and has high-profile support from real estate companies like Blackstone, Brookfield, Cortland and Walker & Dunlop and celebrities like A-Rod, Jennifer Lopez, and Mariano Rivera.In addition to this episode with Cedric, Leading Voices has interviewed many leaders in the real estate business making a difference in our communities, including Jane Graf from Mercy Housing, Jonathan Rose from Jonathan Rose Companies, Daryl Carter from Avanath, Bobby Turner from Turner Impact Capital, Ron Terwilliger from Trammell Crow Residential, John Stewart from the John Stewart Companies, and others. Visit leadingvoicespodcast.com to hear these episodes and more.

Disruptors in real estate, particularly in the PropTech sector, are topics that Matt has tackled on several Leading Voices in Real Estate episodes, including with guests like Clara Brenner, the co-heads of Lyric, Jamie Hodari, and Chip Conley. He expands on this conversation with Brad Greiwe, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Wall, the largest venture capital fund focused on the global real estate industry and property technology. Still in his 30s, Brad already has substantial career achievements (including co-founding Invitation Homes) and has created a VC fund that is differentiated from others. For instance, half of Fifth Wall’s billion-dollar VC funds come from investors inside of the industry. Additionally, the company consults with real estate clients on how to get ahead of the curve in terms of technology and innovation to drive a more sustainable performance. Brad’s entrepreneurial spirit and gravitas demonstrate how he is establishing leadership for the next generation and is at the forefront of the convergence of technology and the built environment.A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Brad’s grew up in a real estate family, with his dad working for a multifamily developer. He was recruited to play football at Harvard, and while Brad wasn’t quite NFL caliber, he capitalized on sports to propel his education. While at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, and many of his friends went towards that side of the tech industry, Brad decided after graduation to move in a different direction initially.Brad started his career in investment banking at UBS in the real estate, lodging, and leisure group, where he tallied over $33 billion of M&A advisory work and $1 billion of debt and equity financing, including the sale of Hilton Hotels to The Blackstone Group for $26 billion—the largest hotel privatization in history. He then worked in real estate private equity at Tishman Speyer and Starwood Capital, where he executed over $30 billion of acquisitions, debt financing, and development projects.Prior to starting Fifth Wall, Brad co-founded Invitation Homes (NYSE: INVH), a multi-billion dollar owner and operator of single-family rental properties originally backed by The Blackstone Group. As CTO, he positioned Invitation Homes as the dominant technology-forward brand in the single-family rental category, developing a proprietary technology stack to support the valuation, acquisition, rehabilitation, leasing, and professional management of over 80,000 homes in 17 major markets, serving 120,000 residents across the U.S.

Leading Voices in Real Estate has tackled the full spectrum of the real estate industry: multifamily, office, retail, hospitality, and now cannabis? That’s right. This week, Matt speaks with Paul Smithers, CEO of Innovative Industrial Properties, the first and only NYSE REIT serving the cannabis space. It’s hard to imagine that this type of business would exist even a decade ago, but with the changing landscape of real estate investment groups and the legalization of marijuana across the U.S., Innovative Industrial Properties tapped into an industry with huge growth potential.Founded in 2016, Innovative Industrial Properties (IIP) is the pioneering real estate investment trust for the medical-use cannabis industry. Like a traditional real estate investment trust (REIT), a corporation that combines the capital of many investors to acquire income-producing real estate, IIP invests in facilities that are a combination of industrial buildings plus greenhouses for (mostly) medical-use cannabis. IIP has invested in properties in over 12 states and will likely continue to grow as medical-use cannabis is legal in 33 states, plus the District of Columbia. On average, IIP is seeing returns between 11 and 14%.Paul and his Co-Founder, Alan Gold, hatched up the idea for the company in his backyard. Alan had co-founded two bio-tech REITs, Alexandria and BioMed, and after selling Biomed, was looking for a new venture. So, they acquired the real estate behind a marijuana grow center and, from there, created the idea behind the REIT.Paul brought over three decades of leadership experience in legal, commercial and real estate spaces, to leading the development of key growth strategies designed to achieve strong returns on investment at IIP. Prior to IIP, Paul held positions as co-founder and chief legal officer of Iso Nano International, LLC, a designer and manufacturer of advanced materials for use in the aerospace, consumer goods, electronics, and safety industries. Preceding Iso Nano International, LLC, Paul was the managing partner of Smithers & Player, Attorneys at Law.Listen in to hear how Paul is riding high off of this unique business venture!

It’s no surprise that coworking spaces are shaking up the business world. Many companies are abandoning their traditional offices, selling assets like desks and rolling chairs, and downsizing square footage to move into modern outsourced workplaces, like Industrious and WeWork. With this growing trend, competition is increasing, though no two models are identical and profits can be hard to achieve. This week’s timely discussion with Jamie Hodari, CEO and Co-Founder of Industrious, touches on just that and drills into what sets a company like Industrious apart from others.The three major takeaways from this conversation are just that:In terms of user experience, coworking spaces are extremely differentiated.Not all of these coworking businesses need to have a “unicorn model” that completely disrupts the office industry.As reflected in most Leading Voices in Real Estate episodes: A great leader can elevate an entrepreneurial idea to a successful business.Industrious is a company that follows this model to a T. The company is the largest premium flexible workspace provider in the U.S. with over 84 locations in more than 45 cities. Founded in 2013, Industrious has raised over $222 million and expects to be profitable in Q1 2020. They work in partnership with landlords, unlike the tenant of landlord models, and have secured over 20 landlord partners including Hines, EQ Office, Macerich, Jamestown LP, and most recently Equinox at Hudson Yards. Lastly, Jamie has guided the company to this growth through thoughtful decisions, by evaluating his competition, creating Industrious as a best-in-class coworking space, and partnering with established companies who are looking to revolutionize as well.To some, Jamie has had an atypical journey to the CEO of an entrepreneurial business. He grew up in suburban Detroit, Michigan, next door to Justin Stewart, who’s remained a close friend and co-founding business partner of Industrious. He started his career as a journalist at the Times of India. He also previously ran the education non-profit Generation Rwanda, analyzed investments at the hedge fund Birch Run Capital, and was a project finance lawyer at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. Prior to Industrious, he was the CEO and Co-Founder of Kepler, a rapidly growing experimental university that Scientific American called a “daring global experiment” to bring “top-tier instruction to the neediest parts of the planet.” He’s an Ivy League triple threat, holding a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.P.P. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from Columbia University.

The late 1980s saw massive changes in the real estate industry. The passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and then the S&L crisis that followed transitioned the industry into a modern, institutional business. During this time, Dr. Peter Linneman had just started reworking the real estate program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.Dr. Linneman was an outsider economist who saw the obvious future in information, transparency, and capital flows. This week’s conversation dives into Dr. Linneman’s experience, from his perch at Wharton where he learned from and then counseled the then giants in the industry on this transformation as well as trained the future generation of leaders in the business.Dr. Linneman’s story begins in Lima, OH, which at the time was a booming industrial city. He supported himself starting at a young age to attend private high school and went on to obtain his masters and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. During his studies, he was trained by prominent economists including Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, George Stigler, Ted Schultz and Jim Heckman. As an economist by trade, he started his career in general economics and industrial organization, which at the time was mostly manufacturing. Soon after, he pivoted to commercial real estate.The Dean the University of Pennsylvania approached Dr. Linneman and asked him to evaluate the real estate curriculum in their business program. Following his research, he developed and designed Wharton’s renowned real estate program and subsequently served as the founding chairman of the department and the Director of Wharton’s Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center for 13 years. Quite literally, Dr. Linneman wrote the textbook for collegiate real estate programs.Beyond his time in academia, Dr. Linneman has had a tenured career as a Founding Principal of Linneman Associates, a leading real estate advisory firm; CEO of American Land Fund; and CEO of KL Realty. He’s also advised leading corporations and served on over 20 public and private boards, including serving as Chairman of Rockefeller Center Properties, where he led the successful restructuring and sale of Rockefeller Center in the mid-1990s.While Dr. Linneman is now retired from Wharton’s faculty, he and his wife Kathy support a program, Save A Mind, Give A Choice, which commits to educating young children of extreme poverty in rural Kenya. Dr. Linneman contributions to the academic study of the field has been instrumental in training the leaders of the real estate industry today and subsequent educational programs in real estate fields.

Season Four Teaser | Where We’ve Been + Where We’re GoingAfter our summer hiatus, Leading Voices in Real Estate returns for its fourth season. To kick it off, host Matt Slepin shares the current trends of listeners and the direction for the new season. He also reflects on some of his favorite moments from the series that include:The episode with Lisa Picard, CEO of EQ Office, and how she demonstrates that there are no limits for women on how far they can take their careers.A two-part episode with Ron Terwilliger, former CEO of Trammell Crow Residential, where he walks through the entirety of his influential career and his lasting impact on the real estate industry. A big portion of the conversation is on affordability, a common topic of this podcast that we see in other episodes like Bobby Turner, Daryl Carter, and Jonathan Rose.In the final interview of season three with Larry Webb, founder and CEO of The New Home Company, he concluded with the statement “homebuilding is a noble enterprise” and Matt and Larry shared a discussion on what that means for the real estate industryAlso, with the start of the ULI Fall Meeting in Washington, DC, we are rebroadcasting our episode with Global ULI CEO Ed Walter, who had a 35-year career experience in the industry before leading the organization.Ed Walter | From Running a $19B REIT to Leading ULI (Rebroadcast)With the start of the ULI Fall Meeting in Washington, DC, we are rebroadcasting our episode with Global ULI CEO Ed Walter, who had a 35-year career experience in the industry before leading the organization. Learn more about his career trajectory as you head to and from one of the largest meetings in the real estate industry. Here’s a little bit more about Ed:Ed Walter, was named Global CEO for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in June of 2018. Ed had a 35-year career in the industry prior to joining ULI, the headline of which was his 20 years at Host Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Host Marriott, of which the last 9 years he spent as its CEO. Now as the leader of ULI, Ed discusses the changes and challenges that the organization faces, as well as its mission in representing the voice of thoughtful development out in the world. The real estate industry is all about helping create sustainable and vibrant cities and places to live, work, and play. ULI plays a crucial role in articulating and promoting that message and aspiration.

This is Matt Slepin and welcome to Leading Voices in Real Estate. I just read the sad news that architect Phil Freelon, a guest on the show back in June 2017, just passed away. This is a rerelease of that interview.In the interview, we spoke about his life, his work, his family and his battle with ALS, which he approached as another mountain to climb. Phil is best known for designing the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. He was also the mastermind behind Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights and San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora.This was a particularly moving conversation. Phil did not shy away from talking about his disease and how he was using the limited time that he knew he had left to plan for his legacy, both within the architecture industry for aspiring Black architects and also with his family. Phil was a soulful man, which I think comes across in the interview.With his passing, we are re-releasing the original interview, which I hope you will enjoy.

Larry is the founder and CEO of The New Home Company, a West Coast focused public homebuilder founded in 2009 in the depths of the financial crisis.Prior to forming The New Home Company, Larry was the CEO of John Laing Homes, where he was instrumental in growing that business from a small, two market company to the second largest private homebuilder in the US; he sold the firm in 2006 in the largest private residential transaction in US history.Larry talks about lessons learned in the homebuilding business and his thoughtful, intentional, lessons-learned approach to the business in the forming of The New Home Company.Larry talks passionately about his leadership journey from high school teacher and coach to building and running teams and companies in the homebuilding business and the meaning of his company’s mantra that “buildings homes is a noble thing to do with your life”. We discuss the audacity of using the word “noble” just as have other Leading Voices guests spoken about the articulation of mission in their firms.

Bobby Turner, the Principal and CEO of Turner Impact Capital, and previously the leader of Canyon’s real estate investment platform, is a passionate force for good in the real estate industry.His career began as a money maker and pure wealth creator in the private equity world, particularly in real estate at Canyon. Gradually, he eased into impact investing through an early partnership with Magic Johnson. This led to a revelation that inspired him to focus exclusively on impact investing, the art of balancing impact and profits, and the creation of Turner Impact Capital.Since 2014, Turner Impact Capital has become one of the country’s largest social impact investment funds, with $3 billion of investment potential in three areas:Workforce housing where they have acquired 7800 units.Charter schools with his partner Andre Agassi, which has built 103 public charter schools.Healthcare facilities investments where they have developed or acquired 15 community healthcare centers.Bobby is a compelling, brilliant man who strongly makes the case for pursuing social good through the lens of business.Additional ResourcesTurner Impact Capital Celebrates Five Years of “Profits With a Purpose”

Gene Golub is the Founder and Chairman of Golub and Company, a family-owned, international real estate developer and owner based in Chicago.Now in his eighties, Gene discusses the discipline and passion it took to build this commercial real estate business from the ground up in the ‘60s, and how his family values and culture have shaped its impressive trajectory. Gene highlights the projects and partnerships that influenced the company’s growth, from its early beginnings in his hometown of Chicago to Eastern Europe and beyond.Today, Gene guides the company directionally but has passed the baton onto the second and third generations of family members. The family’s strong trust in one generation to the next is a defining factor in the rich Golub and Company legacy.

In this episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, host Matt Slepin engages in a sort of joint interview with Chris Rising, CEO of Rising Realty Partners, an LA-based vertically integrated real estate firm, and host of The Real Market Podcast. Chris and Matt talk about the lessons they’ve learned while hosting their podcasts and their experiences interviewing leaders in commercial real estate. They also swap questions with each other about their business journeys. While Matt talks about his work in executive search at Terra Search Partners, Chris discusses his family built company, Rising Realty Partners, which he co-founded with his father—real estate legend, and past client of Matt’s—Nelson Rising. Rising Realty Partners is largely an office property company, and is deeply focused on bringing technology, sustainability, and diversity into the real estate industry.Learn more about Chris Rising and Rising Realty Partners:Rising Realty PartnersThe Real Market Podcast

Today’s interview is with Bill Bayless who is the co-founder and CEO of the only publicly traded student housing company, American Campus Communities (ACC). Bill co-founded the company in 1993, literally just down the hall from Michael Dell who founded Dell Computers—that’s right, two of Austin’s biggest companies founded just a few dorm rooms apart from each other.This company is one of the true pioneers in the student housing business. ACC’s initial mission revolves around a deep and long term commitment to excellence and service—be it to employees, customers, investors—focusing on more than just a transactional goal.To learn more about Bill and American Campus Communities visit:https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-bayless-1235b62a/https://www.americancampus.com/Also mentioned in this episode:Keith Oden – Creating the Ultimate Company Culture (podcast)

Today’s interview is with Ed Walter, who was named Global CEO for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in June of 2018. Ed has had a 35-year career in the industry prior to joining ULI, the headline of which was his 20 years at Host Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Host Marriott, of which the last 9 years he spent as its CEO. Now as the leader of ULI, Ed discusses the changes and challenges that the organization faces, as well as its mission in representing the voice of thoughtful development out in the world. The real estate industry is all about helping create sustainable and vibrant cities and places to live, work, and play. ULI plays a crucial role in articulating and promoting that message and aspiration.Find out more about Ed Walter:Renowned Real Estate Industry Leader W. Edward Walter Is ULI’s New Global CEOQ+A with ULI’s New Global CEO, Ed Walter

In this episode of Leading Voices in Real Estate, Matt Slepin interviews Gilda Perez-Alvarado. Gilda was recently, in September 2018, named the CEO for JLL’s Hotels and Hospitality Group, Americas. In the interview, Gilda shares her career story — from growing up in Costa Rica, to hotel school at Cornell, then working across the globe on hotel transactions, and now her leadership in the business. She shares her wisdom both about the ever-changing hotel business and its ever-deepening engagement with its guests as well as the global nature and appeal of investing in the sector.This is the first part of back-to-back episodes on the hospitality business. Our conversation with Gilda will be followed up with a conversation with Ed Walter, formerly head of Host Hotels and Resorts, and now the Global CEO of the Urban Land Institute.Find out more about Gilda Perez-Alvarado:Gilda on LinkedInGilda & JLLGilda & Cornell

Cedric Bobo is the Co-Founder of Project Destined, a 501c3 that educates both inner city kids and military veterans in financial literacy and community development by their investing, shark tank style, in real real estate deals in their communities. Project Destined brings in the kids and the vets alongside major real estate investment firms like Brookfield in the Bronx and Cortland Partners in Atlanta, with sponsorship and participation from the NBA and celebs like A-Rod, J Lo, and Mariano Rivera. The mission of Project Destined is to transform minority youth into owners and stakeholders in the communities in which they live, work and play. Cedric tells his career story — from growing up in Memphis, to Harvard Business School, to investment banking and private equity at DLJ and The Carlyle Group, to founding Project Destined.

In this special edition showcasing a panel discussion from the 2019 National Multifamily Housing Council Meeting, we explore the centerpiece topic of recruiting and managing talent in today’s industry with four leaders in the apartment business: Bill Bayless, CEO of American Campus Communities; Chris Payne, President of SARES-REGIS Group; Cindy Scharringhausen, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Camden Property Trust; and Julie Smith, Chief Administrative Officer at The Bozzuto Group. They are generous in sharing their honest challenges, valuable wisdom, innovative strategies, and time-tested tactics for success.Related LinksArticle on NMHC.org

You might say that innovation, passion, and real estate are in Lucy Billingsley’s blood. As the only daughter of real estate legend Trammell Crow, Lucy wanted to make her own name for herself and co-founded the Billingsley Company with her husband. The firm has been developing and creating spaces full of dynamic energy in the Dallas area for years.

In today’s round table discussion, Co-head of JLL’s Multifamily Capital Market’s platform, Christine Espenshade; CEO of Holland Partner Group, Clyde Holland; and Executive Director of Up for Growth National Coalition, Mike Kingsella explore the future of the Multifamily Housing Market and the policies shaping its trajectory.The FutureWhile Clyde, Christine, and Mike agree that the outlook is positive and the economy is picking up, the supply is already a problem for the increasing demand in the market.Clyde advises developers and builders to get start building now to get ahead of the projected buying challenges, with the knowledge that it may be slow in the beginning but will pay off as demand increases.Christine emphasizes that institutional investors are already interested and willing to support these long-term projects because they know that the investment promises steady, safe returns. The shift from home ownership to long-term apartment occupancy is also a clear marker that multifamily housing is a crucial option the market needs to focus on.Policies Slow ProgressionMike sees the issue of supply stemming from the exclusionary policies that are suppressing growth. At Up For Growth National Coalition, their mission is to advocate for a new approach to housing development, focusing on how growth benefits everyone in the community.Clyde, an original founder of Up for Growth, feels the push back from the city council against development regularly.“Even though there is a housing crisis my building housing is considered a negative… Cities have responded to housing not being affordable by introducing policies that made it more expensive.”He adds that developer’s voices are often not valued because people think their motives and projects are all about making money, not about improving their community. Up for Growth acts as the voice for this cause, advocating for more affordable housing close to jobs and transportation so employees can spend more time with their families.“If you have to commute for two hours each way in order to gain a job in the SF Bay Area, the breadwinner doesn’t have an opportunity to spend time with their spouse and their kids,” said Mike.Mike and Clyde see a combination of tax-exempt bond financing for affordable housing at the federal level combined with state-regulated opportunities for development as the solution to both traffic congestion and housing challenges.Christine also concludes that we need to think about housing as a holistic approach to growing our economy and mixing these government partnerships with private investments for a positive long-term plan.

Bill Stein, CEO of Digital Realty, one of the largest data center real estate companies in the world, entered the data center space just as the cloud was born.“We are fortunately right at the middle of all of this, we are at the heart of this revolution.”Pennsylvania and PrincetonBill grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, where relationships, friendship, family, and sports (specifically football) mattered above all else. He attended boarding school in Philadelphia, Princeton for his B.A. in the classics, and the University of Pittsburgh for law school.After working for his father’s law firm as an insurance defense litigator, he joined Duquesne Light Company as a lawyer and then Assistant Treasurer, and then Westinghouse Credit and Westinghouse Electric where he tackled deals before and during the S&L crisis.In 1994, Bill moved to San Francisco to work with one of his previous clients at Westinghouse, TriNet Corporate Realty Trust which was soon sold to iStar Financial Inc. He went on to serve as co-head of Venture Bank @PNC (a technology lending business) at PNC Bank in Pittsburgh with a satellite office in San Francisco.Building Digital RealtyBill joined GI Partners (Digital Realty’s predecessor private equity fund) in 2004 as the CFO and Chief Investment Officer of Digital Realty Trust and helped GI’s data center portfolio go public as Digital Realty.First, Digital Realty began expanding globally, acquiring properties in Europe and Asia. Their business was mainly leasing large chunks of space to financial institutions and technology companies until they bought Telex, an interconnection business which is crucial for data centers.Balancing Tech and Real EstateIn the beginning, Digital Realty was an asset-focused business, but now it is much more customer-focused. There are a lot of real estate details in their relationships with their customers, however, the service level obligations they offer would not be found in a typical real estate firm.“What we provide is a secure space, and we provide access to power. We provide connectivity. We provide power redundancy. So if power lines go down… we have initially batteries in our data centers that kick on to keep the servers running until the generators kick in.”Bill explains that their tenants, including Amazon and Microsoft, are quite loyal and secure because it’s an expensive proposition to leave. Digital Realty’s global footprint, trust, and certainty of delivery give them a tremendous competitive advantage as their customers are confident knowing they can expand their current campus if necessary.The FutureThe Internet of Things, sensors in your home, an Amazon device that controls your lights or searches the internet for you, motion detectors, autonomous driving, virtual reality, artificial intelligence… Data centers are crucial to the ecosystem of the technological advances happening now and in the future.“Innovation here is trying to figure out where the puck is headed, and get there before the puck gets there.”AdviceDon’t be afraid to take educated risks, be open to new opportunities, and value transparency, integrity, ethics, and relationships. You never know when a friendship might matter.

Daryl Carter is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Avanath Capital Management, LLC, a real estate investment firm that acquires, renovates, and operates affordable and workforce housing communities across the US. His dual focus on both investment returns and improving the communities where he invests is rare in this business, and we hear on this episode what drives Daryl to succeed in this balancing act.

John Stewart is the Founder and Chair of the John Stewart Company, a San Francisco-based owner, developer, and manager of affordable and mixed-income housing, founded in 1978 with three employees.Today, the Company has 1,400 employees in five offices in the state of California, managing 31,000 units with over 2000 units in its development pipeline.From Aerospace to Affordable HousingJohn grew up in California, graduating from Stanford in 1956 with a liberal arts degree and a focus on history and finance. When he was recruited by U.S. Steel, he moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles but found that the large corporate culture wasn’t a good fit for his entrepreneurial mindset. He switched to TRW as a young management trainee and moved in 1964 to Houston to join TRW’s new offices at the Johnson Space Center.“In careers, once in a while there’s sort of a choice point… we saw the astronauts and NASA up close and personal, but I was also interested in finding out about life in a Southern city.”John showed up as an out-of-towner at the Houston Council on Human Relations to see how he could help and get involved. He joined its low-income housing committee and soon became Chair. His activism quickly caught the Mayor’s attention, who requested that TRW fund a paid leave and lend John to the city for a year to chair the City’s Citizen’s Committee on Affordable Housing. TRW agreed.Founding John Stewart CompanyJohn became so interested in housing that when his year was up, that he headed back to Los Angeles with TRW and encouraged them to apply for HUD’s (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) Operation Breakthrough for manufactured housing.TRW was selected, and built nearly a thousand modular affordable housing units in Sacramento and New Mexico; however, manufactured housing was not profitable and John decided to make an offer to acquire 500 units of section 236 multi-family housing from TRW, and the John Stewart Company was born.“One of the few things I did right was plan for capital losses. Every start-up book I read said the dominant reason for failure in small businesses is undercapitalization, so I assumed two years of losses and that’s what it was.”John shares how he capitalized on other’s mistakes by buying and investing in properties that were about to go into assignment or foreclosure. In the process he built trust with HUD. When President Ronald Reagan implemented the low-income tax-credit program in 1984, he began using these credits as an alternative method of financing.“I’ve found that if you are just doing management, particularly low income, with a lot of challenging residents, you don’t last long… it helps to have another line of work, and that would be the development side, the acquisition, the rehab.”In the last 15 years, the company has gone beyond acquisition to also develop new construction projects. John shares that he especially likes working with non-profit corporations in joint ventures because they complement one another.And while he admits that he has had deals that go sideways – there is always a risk – everyone he works with wants to build products that are architecturally attractive and “pencil out.” This is what makes working in this industry fulfilling.After 25 years John sold his company to Southern California Edison. In another choice point, after 5 years he bought it back mainly due to differing views on the company mission. Now, John is proud to have partners that he works with who have been with him for years and who he trusts completely.Tackling HomelessnessWhile others may argue it’s a waste of money, John emphasizes the importance of creating good-looking, market quality housing for low-income people.“My argument is that form and function are connected. You build a schlock product, people will treat it like a schlock product. You build something elegant, they treat it well, with respect, and your turnover is less.”John has found this approach has also helped change the perspective of neighborhoods who are initially opposed to development. When they encounter this dynamic, they bring doubtful prospective tenants and neighbors inside other John Stewart Company Developments to give them a palpable sense of what the new residence will be. Once the tenants and surrounding residents talk to the management, see the quality of the space, the screenings of residents, and the security, it has a very positive effect.ChallengeIf you’re in the affordable housing business with a purely financial bent, then this isn’t your cup of tea. But if you’re comfortable with moderate, reasonable returns, and can accept the risk, this is for you. At the end of the day, you’ve created an attractive physical product that’s a difference-maker in society.

Sam Zell, one of the most storied names in real estate, describes his riveting journey from his parents’ escape from Poland in 1939 as Hitler invaded to how he built his real estate empire at Equity International, created the modern REIT, and lead the industry public.More about Equity Group InvestmentsForbes Magazine on Sam Zell’s successAm I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

Colin Wiel is Co-Founder Chairman, and CTO of Mynd, a full stack, tech-enabled, property management company focused on small residential (single family rentals plus small multi-family buildings).AI and JavaColin grew up in Washington D.C., went to high school in Reno, Nevada, and went to UC Berkeley where he got his BA in mechanical engineering. Straight out of college, he landed a dream job at Boeing, where he wrote algorithms for automatic control systems and developed groundbreaking new software.He had a strong entrepreneurial spirit and soon struck out on his own as an independent software consultant working with giants like Hewlett Packard, Oracle, and Netscape, where he became one of the very first Java programmers in the world.He began developing and teaching the Java curriculum for UC Berkeley and while continuing his consulting with a new focus on Java. Eventually, his consulting grew into a full-fledged firm and he brought on many students he had taught. One of their big projects was transitioning Charles Schwab’s website from C to Java, which at the time it was the largest e-commerce website in the world.When he sold his business, a friend sparked his interest in the mobile home park marketplace, and he started investing in that corner of real estate.“If that idea is counter to what most people think, all the better because that’s where the opportunity lies.”WaypointAs he continued investing in mobile home parks and researching the single-family home market, he realized he could make more profit there. He connected with Doug Brien who had a similar idea, and they started buying homes and renting them out, with a long-term selling strategy.People thought they were going to cap out because of the sheer amount of management and upkeep, but their profits and vision said otherwise.17:00 “We said, ‘With all due respect, we think we can build a cloud-computing, mobile computing, infrastructure. A single system of record that our people use, but also the residents use, our vendors, we’re all connected… and then we can build systems on top of that to automate a lot of the functionality or just systematize what happens so that it all runs smoothly so that we’re not dropping balls.’”They raised a series of funds and continued to grow Waypoint (now Invitation Homes) as the pioneers in the space. Eventually, Colony Starwood and Blackstone entered the arena, and that’s when it really became a new industry. After 5 years, they went public as a REIT in a partnership with Starwood called Starwood Waypoint.“So when the big conservative, institutional investors saw that single-family rental is generating the same NOI margins as multi-family, then it was sort of ordained to be a legitimate asset class.”MyndAfter going public as Starwood Waypoint, Colin knew he wanted to strike out on his own again and be in an innovative, start-up environment.He saw how massive and fragmented it was, and how nobody was leveraging technology in the way that had revolutionized other industries. This reflection is what led him to start Mynd, and he quickly asked Doug to partner with him again.“It tends to be a full stack company that’s providing a complete end to end service that’s competing with the incumbents that disrupts an industry.”Property management is complex. From collecting rent, managing repairs and maintenance, to leasing vacant units, Colin saw that accounting and the flow of money were integral to the solution he wanted to create. With these priorities in mind, they began creating a software with an accounting platform from scratch, that gives a property owner a real-time transparent view of what’s going on at their property in a revolutionary way.Their strategy is focused on expanding into new markets like San Diego and Seattle, by acquiring property management principals and then shifting them into their own software. This streamlines the property managers job and improves their service while giving Mynd a spokesperson in that community.Looking forward, Colin is excited to use their data to offer new products and services, like owners insurance, vacancy insurance, and financing products to renters in a much more efficient way.For Colin, giving renters a better experience isn’t just about good business, it’s about human dignity. He is confident that by helping renters have a better experience, Mynd is helping society transition from a renters society to an owners society.When he’s not thinking of innovative new ideas, Colin has a philanthropic partnership with Wildlife Works Carbon to protect the Panama Rainforest.AdviceReal estate is known for being a slow-moving industry. However, if you are young, nimble, and willing to take a chance, there is a huge opportunity to innovate the space.

Art GenslerWhen Art Gensler started his firm in 1965, Gensler solely did interiors. Today, it is not just an interior or a design firm; rather, Gensler thinks of itself as a full-scale, client-focused design firm with a team of 6,000 in 48 offices around the world.He remembers knowing he wanted to be an architect from since he was 5 years old, and credits his ability to visualize things and communicate that vision well to his skill as a planner.After working in the service, he went on to work for a Shreve, Lamb and Harmon in NYC, spent time in the British West Indies, and created the entire architectural standards guide for Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons. At 30, he struck out on his own.EvolvingArt says that when he founded Gensler, it started slowly by focusing on producing high-quality work. The recognition Gensler received for these early projects led him into the consulting field, and soon Gensler was being tapped by Pennzoil to do more than just interior design. Now, their workload is about 50% architecture and 50% interiors, branding, graphics, product design, and consulting.“You’re designing space for people that they’re going to use, not just look at, but actually physically use which is the most important space that we’re going to do. So I’ve always felt that the interior is as important as the outside.”Creating an Excellent TeamArt emphasizes that at Gensler, it’s not just about the designer. The receptionist and the accounting department get just as much recognition as the designer. And ultimately, their clients are the priority.“Success for designers and people in our industry is not how big the pile of chips is in front of you. Success is a happy client and a successful project.”When Apple asked Gensler to create a brand new retail experience, Art was up for the challenge. While he says it was hard work and wasn’t easy, it was a project he will always be proud of.Riki NishimuraWhen Riki Nishimura, Director of Urban Strategies, joined the Gensler team, he was nervous and wondered whether his ideas would get lost in the big firm. However, he soon found that it was an empowering culture where design solutions were discovered through natural collaboration.He cites their current project of Cisco Guangzhou Smart City Master Plan in China as an exemplary piece of work that embodies Gensler’s culture.“It creates a platform for innovation and enables people to achieve their maximum potential.”ChallengesThere’s a balance you have to strike in development. Art shares the example of how Steve Jobs never did focus groups because he said they didn’t know what was possible.You have to push things and people out of their comfort zone to a certain point.“We have to now really build frameworks which are adaptable and modifiable, and the inside is going to be more modifiable than the outside, but they’ve all got to be changeable because the world is changing and people have to recognize that.”AdviceArt: Get a good, broad education. You need a breadth of knowledge to be a future contributor to society. Also, learn how to speak in public.Riki: You might not be able to solve all of the issues, but always leave things better than when you found them.

Liz Holland is now CEO of her grandfather’s over 77-year-old real estate business, Abbell Associates. She never imagined she would end up there, but she says it was amazing creating a relationship with her grandfather and becoming his colleague for two years before he passed away and continuing his legacy.“It’s such a challenging time in retail real estate because things are transforming so quickly and certainly there have been big retail disruptors in the past and there will be bigger retail disruptors in the future, so it’s been quite exciting for us both in our real estate business and our software business to anticipate those disruptors and ride the wave.”Early CareerHer early career in bond trading, law school, her time at Sekadden Arps, and then working in government for a congressional commission gave her a thick skin and taught her how to take risks. She also was quick to learn that she had a strong desire to be an expert in whatever field she was in and make sure that what she was learning today would benefit her tomorrow.The Family BusinessWhen her grandfather called her to run his business in 1997, she said yes. She started updating it with the new technology necessary for lease management and bringing a new energy to the efficiency. Her grandfather was very open to every change she proposed and she learned many lessons from him, including:   You have to be patient.   You have to have the long view.   Sometimes the best deal you do is the one that isn’t done. Don’t chase it.   The right deal for you will come along.Understanding the MarketAt Abbell, their portfolio is 75% is retail, and 25% office. However, they are looking to grow the office percentage specifically in Chicago and are excited to have Liz’s new app LayerCake assisting in guiding their development decisions.LayerCake is changing the way developers and retailers choose their location. It allows a detailed look at the new developments going on in and around the site, as well as how customers behave at the surrounding locations.“What’s so exciting to us about kind of the big data introduction into this analysis is any market study from the past was driving down the road looking in the rearview mirror because you were always looking at what happened in the census 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 9 years ago… but the predictive analytics component to it of knowing that what people are doing there today likely predicts what they’re going to be doing there tomorrow… is really cool.”What’s NextLiz reminds us that shopping is behavior and people are creatures of habit. With technology, we have so much more access to information and data on customers that stores are able to tailor what they carry in store according to their customer’s needs and wants.People used to say retail was dead, but over the last two years, that narrative has changed (despite what the papers may say).Businesses are discovering that there is a very narrow margin between online and storefronts, and if you want to make money, you need the customer to come into your store.What they’ve learned is that certain retailers can change the shopper profile. For example, at one mall they added a Target, and that changed the mall from a monthly destination to a weekly destination. Now, they’re focused on creating more of hybrid assets rather than traditional malls, adding external entrances rather than the enclosed mall retailers of the past.Liz also foresees the convergence of big entertainment venues with shopping malls as something we will see a lot more of in the future.FulfillmentFor Liz, seeing members of the community at a mall getting all of their needs met in a clean, safe, welcoming space is what fulfills her.AdviceBe willing to do the job that nobody wants to do.

Lisa Picard is a woman with a vision. Thanks to technology, the office development space has evolved from a B2B market to B2C, and she’s on the front lines of in an industry resistant to change.“We’re really not producing products per say; we’re creating ideas. And so, … organizations’ access to ideas is really through collaboration, connection, of having really high-quality talent.”CuriosityLisa grew up in Southeast L.A. County with her twin sister and Depression-era parents who taught her to cherish and respect her resources. This instilled in her a fascination for her urban environment, and she went on to study Urban Planning at California State Polytechnic University.After graduation, she worked closely with the City of L.A., and she saw how developers had a different view book than she did. She wanted in and applied to MIT to dive deeper into development, planning, urban economics, and finance.Just before heading to MIT, at the age of 22 her father suddenly died and her mother the summer after, and Lisa had what she calls her mid-life crisis at 22. As painful as the grieving process was during her time at MIT, it taught her the importance of embracing each moment fully and staying true to herself.Navigating the Development FieldAfter MIT, Lisa moved back to San Francisco and began her journey with the Bristol Group where she had the freedom to grow and learn what a deal looked like and how to create one. From there, she joined the Hines team in Seattle and rode out the rollercoaster of the dot-com era. Next, she was approached by Canyon Ranch, where she learned the power of experience and brand.“Humanistically, there’s always got to be an invitation… when I say an invitation that’s the brand piece, that’s the promise of whatever it is, when I have that engagement with a piece of real estate.”When she was let go by Canyon Ranch, she felt like she had lost her sense of identity. She moved back to Seattle, and learned how to value herself as simply “Lisa Picard.” She started Muse Developments focused on multi-family development, and was soon approached by Skanska to expand their business in Seattle. She agreed and joined them in merchant building.Her vision for bringing humanity and experience-driven spaces into each of her projects made a big impact on Seattle, but she felt called to influence other cities. So when Equity Office approached her, she was ready to join them.TodayAs the CEO of Equity Office, Lisa is focused on the vision and positioning of projects, like the Willis Tower in Chicago, in a way that satisfies the desires of the market.She looks at it with the mindset that every worker needs a balanced diet of productivity: concentration space, collaboration space, and community space. This is what the modern workforce desires, and that is the value and level of service she is striving to deliver as she repositions assets.Being a WomanAt first, Lisa admits that she tried to fit in. But thanks to her mentors who instilled confidence in her and empowered her to believe in herself, she learned her worth. She hopes to do this for other women.AdviceWhen you work in the urban environment and real estate, what you put into the environment affects people. It changes the urban environment and you have to give a sh*t. You have an obligation to people and your surroundings.

Jon Geanakos grew up in Ipswich, Massachusetts, raised mainly by his Greek immigrant grandparents. They gave him a strong sense of ethnicity and hard work, speaking Greek predominantly in their home and running a local grocery store and ice cream parlor. He was recruited to play lacrosse at the University of Lowell and it was there that he found himself embracing leadership. As the captain of his lacrosse team, he excelled at helping the right people work together to achieve their goal.His lacrosse coach introduced him to the president of the local bank, Lowell Institution, and that set him on the trajectory to real estate.   “It’s fascinating how one person just at that pivot point in a young person’s life can guide you to what your life’s work is. You never understand the profoundness at the time when it happens, you obviously realize it when the years have passed.”Jon’s Leadership JourneyAfter a few years at the bank, he was approached by some of the bank’s investors to join them in starting The Tallard Group. This gave him his first entrepreneurial experience. When they closed their doors shortly after, he applied to join Copley Real Estate. There, he took a job as a portfolio manager of failing properties in Texas, and later in Ohio.At Copley, he remembers sitting at meetings amongst Ivy League executives and feeling like he didn’t belong or deserve to be there. However, each time he would make a successful decision, he felt his confidence slowly building.   “When somebody says, ‘This is a really difficult job, you might fail at it,’ I always tell people ‘You must take the tough job because that’s where the upside is… and you’ll learn something from it.’”When Copley and AEW merged, he faced a fork in the road: his mother was diagnosed with cancer and he was ready to move into a more brokerage-focused role. While she was in surgery, he contacted 150 names in the hopes of finding a position in New York, and this initiative landed him at Secured Capital.After gaining experience in brokerage, Trammell Crow approached him and he moved back into closing deals in capital markets. When CBRE merged with Trammell Crow in 2006, Jon trusted his gut and joined Houlihan Lokey where he discovered a new dimension of real estate. During his time at Houlihan Lokey, one of his clients who he was advising on capital raising opportunities, Anthony Westreich, invited him to join Monday Properties as a partner.At Monday Properties Jon began identifying emerging gateway markets like Nashville, Portland, and Denver, which had the potential for large profits. He had a vision for how this could become a viable business, and Cabot Street Capital Partners was born. While this new venture was exciting, it was also lonely. When JLL pursued him, Jon knew it was time to move on to the next step in his career and realized this was it – it was the perfect opportunity.In Jon’s position at JLL, he finds himself employing everything he has learned over the years, as he oversees all sales and financings for the firm’s Capital Markets platform in the U.S., Canada, Latin and South America. This involves everything surrounding investment baking and executing transactions on ownership. While he spends the majority of his time in the U.S. and Canada, his dashboard and longstanding relationships with investors bring him around the world to places like Europe, the Middle East and Asia.Jon identifies JLL’s technical proficiency and expertise, global connection, and wonderful client management as key differentiators among their competitors in the industry. An intentional and active focus on their communication and culture has also lead to huge growth, client satisfaction, and success.Jon’s Advice“You have to be as selfless as you possibly can. It really isn’t about you, it’s about them.”His tips for leadership and managing a team include:Be as selfless as possible and remember it is not about you, it’s about them.Be patient.Simplify things whenever possible.Be forthright and truthful, even when it is hard.Be consistent.Besides working hard and being competitive, Jon says that intellectual curiosity is key to success. You must be open to asking more than the obvious, linear questions. He also identifies increased diversity and ever-evolving technology as game-changers that will transform the future of real estate for the better.Additional LinksPlease check out our coverage from GlobeSt.com. You can read the article, “Eight Ways to Succeed in Real Estate” here.Real Estate Is For YouJon names real estate as a career that is only limited by your own imagination and work ethic. Outwork everyone around you, network aggressively, align yourself with mentors, and remember that you can always find new paths to learning.

Ron Terwilliger’s outstanding career and legacy didn’t end when he retired from Trammell Crow, it only grew.Coming from a low-income family with little expectations of wealth, he wanted to give back and affordable housing seemed to be the most natural place for his philanthropic interest to bloom.   “As I started to get wealthy in my late forties and fifties, I began thinking: what should I do with my time and wealth?”From his $100 million legacy gift to Habitat for Humanity, chairing Habitat’s international Board and the Enterprise Community Partners board to name a few, Ron gives generously of his money, time, and expertise.Public PolicyWhile he is very active in the private sector, his role in the public sector has made a serious impact. After being invited to give a lecture at Harvard on Housing Policy in America, he became inspired by the great Shortage of affordable housing in this country. He characterized this shortage as a housing crisis formed a foundation and started meeting with senators and congressman to change federal housing policies and transform the system.He shares how he has found that unfortunately, the time and resources that the government have devoted to this crisis have been scarce, and housing affordability has not been given the attention and effort it deserves and needs.   “The bottom line to me with this growing shortage of affordable workforce housing is the way we are going to address itis by providing more creative subsidies for construction and more income subsidy. I’m pleased to see that some of the state’s Governors as well as mayors of major cities are paying attention.”When people hear “low-income housing” or “affordable housing,” they often mistakenly think of people who are unemployed or aren’t working. Ron has opted to call it “affordable workforce housing,” however, as it is actually our nurses, firefighters, and policemen who fall into this category and often have to make a serious commute to work because they can’t afford to live close to their job.The Importance of LeadershipRon believes strongly in the importance of selfless, kind, generous leaders who people trust. These were the types of leaders he tried to attract at Trammell Crow, and he credits their ability to give honest feedback and work hard for creating a “utopia-like” work environment.Two great CEO’s who inspire him and who he works with closely today are Jonathan Reckford at Habitat for Humanity and Terri Ludwig at Enterprise.Ron serves on 11 boards and is actively engaged in offering advice, money, and time. He admits that initially as he entered philanthropy, he was embarrassed to talk about how much he gives away, but he has been encouraged that by telling others about his philanthropy it will inspire others to give generously of their time and talent.Ron’s Advice:Find something to do that you really love. Discover the breadth of real estate, see where you can fit, and don’t be afraid to change roles or direction as necessary to do what you want.

In today’s episode, Ron Terwilliger, a great influencer in the apartment sector and dedicated philanthropist, shares part one of his story: his leadership at Trammell Crow Residential and how he literally spawned the next generation of the business.A Strong FoundationRon TerwilligerRon Terwilliger grew up in Arlington, Virginia in the late forties and fifties. He played baseball and basketball at Wakefield High School, and despite a back defect which was thought to be the end of his playing career, he went on to play for the Naval Academy. There, he was named an Academic All American in basketball.Post-graduation, he spent five years in the Navy before getting his MBA at Harvard.“I had one real estate class and I really liked it. I have a fairly good feel for numbers and how they relate and how to think about the quantitative side of the business.”His first real estate job was at Sea Pines Company at Hilton Head Island, where he met colleagues who would go on to work with him closely over the years. When the economy shut down and Sea Pines went bankrupt, he was almost frightened out of real estate. However, he also credits the intensity of the experience at Sea Pines, the recession, and their youth for creating such strong relationships between him and his co-workers.After Sea Pines, he joined the Henry C. Beck Company in Dallas as CFO where he helped grow the business. While in Dallas he was invited to join Trammell Crow Residential by Terry Golden (a business school classmate).Trammell CrowTrammell Crow’s offer required him to take a significant pay cut, but he would have a 40% share in the company. He remembered how his father never took a risk and realized that if he didn’t take this shot, he would never become an entrepreneur. Dick Michaux, a former Sea Pines associate, was his first partner. When Ron completed his first apartment project he made his first million.He credits Charlie Fraser of Sea Pines and Trammell Crow as his two mentors and emphasizes the importance of leaning on people who have a lot of experience in the business to teach you the ropes.He spent most of his time cultivating relationships with investors and lenders, managing core partner relationships, and hiring. Individuals who stood out to him were often MBA’s, smart, had a good feel for numbers, an engaging personality, a healthy balance of work and pay, with a strong commitment to support their families.At Trammell Crow, Ron shares that his vision was to get rich slowly by avoiding over-leveraging and to think of your partnership as lasting for a career.Overcoming the Savings & Loan Crisis and a Tanked EconomyIt was a desperate time for a lot of people in real estate. At Trammell Crow, they didn’t have any recurring income or assets other than a property management business that was cash flowing, so they had to make salary cuts and let people go which he says was incredibly difficult. These people didn’t deserve to lose their job, but it was just a fact of life and necessary to save the company.This challenging time however brought about growth in a new way.As the market got back on its feet, they began developing again. Ron attended a conference with his colleague Chuck Berman, where they met with Fred Cavan about doing a REIT in the Northeast.This series of events led to the creation of AvalonBay with Dick Michaux, Bryce Blair, and Tim Naughton serving as CEOs. Gables with Marc Bromley was formed six months later. Four years later Leonard Wood left to form Wood Partners and about that same time Bruce Ward started Alliance.As these tree branches from the family tree of Trammell Crow grew, Ron continued to build it back and strengthen the roots. After the recession in 2008, Ron retired and set his sights on philanthropy, which we will dive into on next week’s episode!

Chip Conley started one of the country’s first boutique hotel chains, Joie de Vivre, when he was just 26 years old. After selling the company, he joined the startup Airbnb at age 52, despite the fact that the young founders were primed to disrupt his industry.Read more about Chip’s leadershipRead more about Chip’s role at AirbnbPre-order Chip’s newest book, Wisdom @ Work: The Making of a Modern ElderLearn more about Chip’s other books*This is a rebroadcast of our previous interview with Chip Conley.

Clara Brenner is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that provides seed capital and regulatory support to the tech startups addressing the challenges facing urban dwellers. Clara and I had a wide-ranging discussion about her career, business, and the startups and technologies in which her firm has invested.Real Estate and GovernmentGrowing up in Washington, D.C., Clara was surrounded by real estate and government, and found herself drawn to both. Her undergrad thesis explored the historic relationship between real estate developers and local government in Lower Manhattan.“Ultimately, I decided to go down the real estate development path because it seemed like you were equally influential and you got to have more fun, be more creative, and make more money.”After four years of working in real estate, Clara realized she wanted to be her own boss. She returned to school at MIT Sloan with a vision to start her own real estate development firm.Shaping the Future of CitiesClara and her friend Julie Lein crossed paths at MIT Sloan and realized they both had a fascination with companies that were tackling meaningful challenges in cities. After some in-depth research, they discovered that these companies were facing a lot of similar challenges, around issues such as fundraising challenges, physical space, and regulatory and political hurdles.This sparked the creation of their investment vehicle and accelerator Tumml.“I think real estate is a great career if you want to have an impact on the physical environment around you, which is I think is something so many people want now, they want to feel like and see the influence of their work every day.”Tumml paved the way for Clara and Julie to found the Urban Innovation Fund, a more sustainable, long-term investment vehicle that writes larger checks, is involved in multiple rounds of investing and takes board seats. This $24.5 million dollar fund has a diverse portfolio that Clara says aligns with their vision for creating scalable solutions that shape the future of cities. This looks like everything from Milk Stork, a breast milk shipping service for the traveling businesswoman, to Udelv, a driverless delivery service.Their set of investors are more traditional, financially motivated entities who they refer to as “impact curious.”Clara highlights the fact that today, people often look to technology as the changemaker; however, she points to politics and policy as the place where real, slow, painful change happens. Identifying transformative technology is very important, but you still need to vote and be politically engaged to create real change.

Karl Polen did not start out with his sights on real estate. He left his Midwest roots for Nashville at 19, eventually playing with the likes of Charlie Daniels and Johnny Cash.“One of the highlights of my life is that I actually met and chatted with Johnny Cash. He was an incredibly gracious guy.”Karl credits music for shaping his professional career by teaching him the type of discipline and focused effort it takes to become successful.Opening New DoorsWhen he needed a steadier paycheck, Karl went on to work in accounting and received his MBA at Vanderbilt. He was drawn to an entrepreneurial culture, worked with Ed Robson of Robson Communities in the 1980’s, and then joined Francis Najafi, Founder of Pivotal Group, as a partner in real estate investment. Working with these driven entrepreneurs was incredibly fulfilling, and Karl thrived in his role as he helped focus and implement the larger vision.Arizona State Retirement SystemKarl had long intended to work in public service after being inspired by his work on various boards over the years, and during the global financial crisis in 2010, he left Pivotal Group and transitioned from the board to staff with AZASRS.Here, he has transformed their approach to real estate by focusing on demand-driven investing.“We eliminated a middleman, we were able to have more control over our destiny in terms of selecting the type of deals we wanted to do, and then we also have more control to be able to exit an investment or increase an investment, depending on how things are going.”Because they are a small staff of nine, they work closely with their consultant RCLCO to identify the right markets and partners for success.Karl’s Advice:Follow your bliss. Experiment. Find out what means something to you, then dig as deep as possible, become the best you can be, and find a market for it.Don’t be afraid to take risk.Be prepared to reinvent yourself and be ready to adapt.Links from the EpisodeArizona State Retirement Systems InvestmentsArizona State Retirement Systems Strategic Asset Allocation (2018)Karl Polen’s GitHub page

Note from the host- In this episode, you will actually hear me being interviewed, rather than me doing the interview. Jeff Large is the editor of Season 2 of Leading Voices. He interviewed me on his podcast, The Jeff Large Podcast, where he talks about tech, podcasting, and running a business. I get to discuss how this relates to real estate from both a recruiting and leadership standpoint. Enjoy!Terra Search PartnersI founded Terra Search Partners in 2006, a highly consultative executive search firm specializing in the real estate industry. Clients hire Terra as an advisor and consultant to help them understand and hire leaders for their firm.True LeadersCuriosity, humility, a deep understanding of others and their industry, and people who talk about mentors and teams are traits that I consistently see in true leaders. All of them come from some depth of knowledge in the industry that they grew up in.“They don’t just land on the moon and become a leader. They grow up in the industry and they grow up by being exceptional through the pathways that they grow.”People have built amazing companies in the real estate industry. In Leading Voices, I have had the opportunity to interview some amazing folks who have built great businesses. Indeed, I have gained inspiration and insights from most of the interviews. A few to call out are Fred Tuomi, Gadi Kaufman, Keith Oden, Mary Ann Tighe, Sam Zell, Jonathan Rose, John Rahaim, Jane Graf, Steve Wilson and many others.I’ve found that my own leadership strength lies in being a thought leader within the industry and an advisor who listens well and tries to continually add value for clients, candidates, and colleagues.Why Podcasting“My success and my happiness becomes not just about my own contribution, but actually about having a company around me that I can teach and work and mentor and have those that love it as much as I do… Teaching that is something that inspires me a lot.”When ULI asked if I wanted to be their “Terry Gross”, I didn’t realize the level of passion and desire I would have for hosting a podcast series. I find that the breadth of knowledge that I’ve gained over the 20 years I’ve spent in the industry is very useful as I interview the leading minds in real estate.For me, podcasting is a great way to grow a business through thought-leadership and credibility, but most importantly, I am passionate about showing the diverse value that real estate companies and leaders add to their cities. It’s inspiring both for leaders already in the business as well as young people thinking about careers in the industry.My AdviceFind a meaning and a purpose in the work you do. Come to your job with a passion and interest day in and day out, and you will bring things to the next level.

Joe Fraiman and Andrew Kitchell, the Co-Founders of Lyric, While it is tempting to compare their startup business to Airbnb, it is actually quite different. Lyric is a highly curated, highly designed, professionally-operated version of rentals where they have total control over the supply, design, and experience of their guests.The Connection:With a background in software and finance, Joe moved West and started Tastemaker, a company created to help people find the right interior designer. At this time, Andrew was managing Beyond Stays and reached out to Joe at Tastemaker to remodel their properties.They had lunch and quickly realized they shared a passion for the possibilities at the intersection of technology, data, and real estate. They saw that people want to live and travel in a more flexible, experience-driven way and they decided to learn: what does this transition look like, what are the challenges, and how can they solve them?Building Trust:Bridging the trust gap with apartments and short-term rentals was an immediate challenge. However, by identifying the underlying reasons for mistrust between apartments and short-term renters, Lyric was able to implement strategies that built trust, like background checks.As the relationships blossomed, Lyric secured the high-quality product they wanted while providing apartments with new revenue streams for their portfolios, valuable amenities for their residents, and an additional conversion funnel.“The most interesting thing is that we have the ability to serve all kinds of different types of customers and use cases… Everything from the two-day leisure trip, the five-day business trip, the 30-90 day relocation or home displacement, all the way to the much longer pattern,” said Andrew.Growing the Company:From the beginning, Joe and Andrew knew the importance of securing investors – which include NEA, Fifth Wall Ventures, Barry Sternlicht, and Signal Fire – who would help them scale, build up their real estate expertise, grow their brand, double down on data, and accelerate growth.“It’s about having the passion and the curiosity to say ‘Hey, I believe there is something behind that mountain and we’re going to hike in that direction, and we’re going to learn things along the way, and course correct,’ and I think that’s what investors are looking for,” said Joe.Andrew and Joe are quick to admit that it would be challenging to run a company of Lyric’s scope by themselves. They credit their complementary skill sets and ability to discuss things with the other as vehicles for helping them move quickly, test things, and solve problems.

Ken grew up in Northern California’s Bay Area, eventually receiving his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford in Business. Simultaneously, he obtained a California Brokers License because he was drawn to real estate. He was aware of the self-storage industry in California, but when he moved out to Boston after college he saw that there was a gap in the market on the East Coast. This piqued his interest in the industry.After opening up the first Extra Space Storage in Billings, MT in 1977 in a partnership with his boss at the time, Ken went on to teach at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah. There, he continued growing Extra Space, until sky-high interest rates slowed down development in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990’s.“I didn’t think it through very well… but you know, sometimes when you’re an entrepreneur you don’t have a good long-term strategy. You’re just trying to survive.”The Modern Extra SpaceInspired by the corporate strategy class he was teaching, Ken realized in 1998 he was serious about growing Extra Space. He needed money, a good management team, and a partner to help him. Diane Olmstead of Arthur Anderson Real Estate Capital Markets Group helped Extra Space bring a financial partnership with Prudential Real Estate Investors. Spencer Kirk joined as a partner in order to put the team together, while Ken as CEO focused on acquisitions, development, and financing.“We spent a lot of time working with employees, employee benefits, and employee motivation, and I think that that has paid huge dividends for us. Second of all, we always had a philosophy of being fair in any business transaction… we really internalized the idea that when you have a contract or business relationship, you’re always fair to the other guy.”In the same way that you trust a Marriott Hotel, Ken recognizes that the secret sauce for success lies in the reputation of their business name.Because its tenants don’t talk to one another, Extra Space can leverage technology to offer different prices and promotions based off of certain customer’s characteristics and the self-storage product they want to purchase. He credits this sophistication and tailored-pricing to why they are outperforming others in their industry.Advice:Woolley is a serial entrepreneur and has a plethora of experience in industries including airlines, technology, mining, fast food, and more. But storage is the one thing he knows best and to be successful in real estate, he puts a lot of emphasis on having a good education and a lot of experience.“If you want to be in real estate, there are two ways to approach it. Number one is start from the ground up. And that means you start developing small things with small partners. The other way is to get a job with a real estate company, learn the ropes, and then go off on your own.”LinksExtra Space StorageEntrepreneur Leadership Video 01Entrepreneur Leadership Video 02Entrepreneur Leadership Video 03

Jane Graf is the President and CEO of Mercy Housing based in Denver and operating nationally, one of the country’s largest nonprofit affordable housing organizations.Jane’s work in affordable housing began early, as she founded the nonprofit Specialized Housing that built affordable housing for those with disabilities before she was 30. When her husband was relocated to San Francisco for his job, she began working for Catholic Charities, which eventually led to her joining Mercy Housing during a merger.Jane credits Mercy Housing’s resilient structure to the Sisters of Mercy’s entrepreneurial approach and understanding that to do good work, you need to put money behind it and take risks.25:40 “They built these institutional responses to need… They know how to not only start something but then really create an institution that can carry on the work way beyond their capability. And they’re really good at it… they’re completely fearless.”She likens Mercy Housing to NPR, a national organization with local branches that are integral to the community. The real change and transformation happens on the local level because every community has different needs and resources.Some of Jane’s important beliefs surrounding affordable housing include:Property management should be about people, not compliance.There is no single, one-size-fits-all model for delivering affordable housing.Stabilizing and supporting people and communities in need will help them get access to foundational necessities like education, healthcare, and good jobs.Jane’s career and life advice are:Celebrate your mistakes because you learn way more from your mistakes than from what you did right.Spend your time allowing yourself to be pulled towards your strengths.

John Rahaim grew up in Detroit. His high school day of community service inspired him to understand the city more, and he went on to receive his B.S. in Architecture from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Architecture with an emphasis on Urban Design from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.The Urban Design program focused on man-environment systems which especially fascinated John."It’s all about the interaction of human behavior and the environment and how each one affects the other."Pittsburgh’s Second Renaissance:After graduating from Wisconsin, he headed to Pittsburgh in the early 80’s, at which point it had the third largest number of corporate headquarters in the country. However, over the 15 years that he was there, most of them left, along with the 27 steel mills.Despite this traumatic change to the city’s makeup, John credits Pittsburgh’s strong ethnic neighborhoods for maintaining their stability, low crime rates, and cohesion in a way that Detroit did not.As a young planner, working with instrumental mentors and a talented, interdisciplinary team in Pittsburgh, John learned what a broad realm of topics planning encompasses."We have to know a little about a lot of things. It’s not just about buildings and design and whatever. It’s about the economy of the city, it’s about public spaces, and it’s about transportation, and it’s about the price of housing, and all of those things. That is really the kind of mix of things we have to deal with. And that was an enormous lesson for me."From Urban Designer to Associate Director, he created strong relationships and rewrote Pittsburgh’s zoning review process. When he decided to move on, he spent some time in Rome to discern the new direction or his career, at which point a position for City Designer opened up in Seattle.Seattle:Halfway through his tenure at the Office of City Design during the late 90’s, the city started seeing significant growth. The Urban Growth boundary that the state had required of all counties since the 1990s had forced cities to think creatively on how to expand up rather than out.San Francisco:After Seattle, he was tapped to take the Planning Director position in San Francisco. He was honored to join the rich planning legacy that exists there, however, he knew it would be no simple task.He laughs that the most common greeting he received when he took the job was “Congratulations and my condolences.”Government Service:John notes that on the West coast, local government is bigger and more is expected from it, certainly when it comes to environmental sustainability.He adds that the population is very knowledgeable which gives leaders both support and push back, as seen with the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), anti-development movement.I’ll be honest, I think part of the aversion to change here is because this place is extraordinarily charming… It’s a beautiful city in a beautiful setting. And people are averse to change in a way that is stronger than the other settings I’ve been in.Challenges in San Francisco:John shares how the housing crisis in San Francisco is due to several factors, including:A consistent decrease in development and residential building.The extraordinary pace of change and turnaround after the recession.The Millennial and Baby Boomer interest in city living.The explosion of tech jobs.The good news is that now they are building more housing than they have in years, and are on pace to meet their six-year goal of building 30,000 housing units.In addition, he has begun diversifying the Planning Office’s responsibilities. This transformation spans duties from co-leading the city’s efforts on sea level rise to building a community development team focused on stabilizing vulnerable neighborhoods, to leading the city’s efforts on transportation planning.Planning Directors:John believes the profession has really matured over the last 30 years. While San Francisco certainly faces unique challenges, many cities are struggling with the same issues and concerns. For example, housing for the middle class is a huge issue everywhere, and transportation is a close second.Advice:John’s advice to those interested in entering the field is to get a broad range of experience in both the public and the private sector. Particularly, he says you need to try to understand the financial motivation in the real estate industry, and why developers and builders do what they do.Link:San Francisco Planning Department

A Technology FoundationFred Tuomi was born in Minnesota, and went on to attend high school and college in Georgia, receiving a B.A. in Business Information Systems and a Masters in Business Administration from Georgia State University. While working for the Computer Sciences Corporation doing consulting, Fred connected with John Lie-Nelsen of Consolidated Capital and Johnstown Properties. This opportunity led to Fred creating the very first automated, apartment management system.“The idea was, let’s use these things called computers that make everything more efficient and increase productivity… Let’s put it where we have most of our people. To really get the benefits of productivity enhancement, you have to make as many employees as possible productive, not just a few back at the home office.”When the Tax Reform Act of 1986 killed the real estate limited partnership business, Fred connected with John Williams and John Glover of Post Properties, and then eventually was invited to join Equity Residential by Doug Crocker.Equity ResidentialFred and his family moved from Atlanta to Chicago, where he became President of Property Management at Equity Residential.“We were trying to build two things. One was a uniform platform that was highly efficient… Second thing was to build a company culture.”Fred shares how Sam Zell, Founder, and Chairman of Equity Residential (see our interview with Zell in Season One of Leading Voices), influenced and shaped its culture. Under Zell’s vision for acquiring irreplaceable assets, the company’s goal evolved from a gross asset accumulation model to a highly refined portfolio and operational platform. Technology also played a critical role throughout the business, including in revenue management, allowing them to study the relationship of supply and demand in a way that hadn’t been possible before.Entering and Exiting RetirementIt wasn’t long after Tuomi retired to spend more time with his grandkids and family, that he was approached by Tom Barrack and Justin Chang of Colony Capital. They wanted his advice on translating his apartment management strategy to the single-family rental business. While many doubted that a long-term ownership and management platform for the single-family market was possible, Fred was able to bring his experience from rolling up assets in the multifamily business and over time saw the business coming together with efficiencies and metrics comparable to the apartment industry. Each asset was bought with an eye on the long-term growth of stabilized income streams which meant that with the various mergers of the Waypoint, Starwood, Colony and Blackstone Invitation Homes portfolios, the footprint didn’t just get wider, it got more deep and dense, improving efficiency. Technology in the hands of the consumer and the front line employee also made these efficiencies possible.“We are now running 2,200+ homes from one centralized property management team similar to an apartment property office. In terms of headcount to assets, we are much more efficient than the apartment business. But we have to employ a lot more technology to bridge that gap.”The Future of the MarketFred sees Millennials entering the housing market society’s increased longevity as signposts for long-term market growth, and emphasizes the importance of developers stimulating the housing supply if we don’t want pricing to increase.

Gerald Hines founded his business in 1957 as a developer of office properties. His namesake company now has a presence in 201 cities and 24 countries, and manages over $110 billion in property. Hines is renowned for not only creating the highest quality buildings in the market, but for partnering with the world’s best architects.The Beginning:Born in Gary, IN in 1925, Hines was the child of parents who came on a boat from Nova Scotia. Growing up, he ran cross country and track and is proud to share that his team won the city championships. He entered college at Purdue early, completing 3 semesters of studies before joining the Army at 18.While in the service, he was part of the Army Corps of Engineers, and his travels introduced him to the inspiring architecture in Seattle and Tacoma.After the Army, Hines returned to school to complete his Mechanical Engineering degree and spent some time selling engineering equipment.He made the leap to development when his neighbor needed a building for 5,000 square feet and Hines said, “let me build it.” This catapulted his career and he began working with larger companies and properties.Growth:“We just evolved… the brokers seemed to get the fact that we had a very high hit rate and so that attracted the better brokers to us with their projects, and quality and good value sustained our entry into that.”The timing was perfect, as Texas was expanding and companies were moving there, so there was a lot of new construction. Hines’ reputation for quality and straight shooting helped them grow.Hines recalls his first big project for Shell, building their new headquarters in Texas. He worked with architect Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill on it, and for the pitch, they used a fancy German lock set to denote the quality of the project they were going to create – and they won. He went on to work with architects like Phillip Johnson on Pennzoil, and create iconic buildings like New York City’s Lipstick building, The Galleria in Houston, and the Marche St. Germain in France.Business Culture:Hines emphasizes the importance of a strong business culture, rooted in integrity.“I think our (team) all realize what integrity means and we stand by our word. We treat people fairly and that’s very important to all of us.”Episode LinksThe Hines WebsiteRaising the Bar: The Life and Work of Gerald D. Hines

Community BuildingMusic was everywhere. We played music, we were encouraged to play music, we sang in the car. But that was also the 70’s.Dar grew up in Chappaqua, NY during the 70’s. It was developing and becoming more progressive as a commuter city to New York City. Her parents were involved in city politics but also enjoyed art, gardening, and music.Through volunteering and fundraising, her parents exemplified community building, her father specifically holding an instrumental role in bringing their local library to life. Dar emphasizes the importance and beauty of libraries as community gathering spaces.Growing up, she has a clear memory of listening to Judy Collins and connecting with the seriousness and poetry of the songwriting. She pursued playwriting and theater until she moved to Boston where she began doing open mics and writing songs in its supportive, vibrant music community.Taking OffAs Dar began traveling and performing, she shares how she fell in love with watching the small towns evolve with each performance, time and time again. She credits this cultivation of culture to the people and the community builders who bring the artists into the town.I watched towns grow up as the venues grew up.Understanding Positive ProximityPositive proximity is the experience of living side by side with people and knowing that your life is better because there are other people, not despite the fact that there are other people.Dar shares a personal example of this from her life of a man who tilled the herb garden while sharing differing political views. Although she disagreed with his politics, she was grateful to spend time with someone who was so different from her but shared a common vision for their community.Some of the Towns That Dar Loves:1. Her hometown, Beacon, NY.2. Phoenixville, PA.3. Gainesville, FL.4. Moab, UT.Based on her 25 years of touring the country, Dar wrote the book “What I Found in A Thousand Towns,” which highlights her unique perspective on how communities evolve. As a bonus, Dar plays her song, “February.” You can find more of her work on her website.

Jim was born and raised in the Detroit suburbs. He has positive memories of the dynamic neighborhood full of families raising their kids and a strong public school environment. Also clear in his memory is a downtown visited on special occasions or to shop at Hudson’s, once America’s largest department store.Transit:Jim attributes Detroit’s early lack of public transportation to the fact that it was the hub for automotive companies, making car ownership king. He wonders how different things might have been, had public transportation been implemented.Many companies have maintained their presence in downtown Detroit through thick and thin, however, during this time of new investment, attracting and retaining top talent is the priority. Bedrock’s success has sparked competition and investment by others in downtown Detroit, helping bring young people and new businesses to the Central Business District.Roots:Jim went to Michigan State College of Law and laughs about how many of his work colleagues now, were old neighbors and classmates of his when he was younger. Specifically, his friend Dan Gilbert, Founder and Chairman of Quicken Loans.As Quicken Loans grew, Jim and Dan deepened discussions about moving the mortgage lender’s headquarters downtown from its suburban location in Livonia, MI. From there, they began to lay the foundation for major change.Transition:Although Jim shares that he was not quite sure what the future held, he also wasn’t afraid of failure. He believed that as long as they never had a plan B and only focused on plan A, this was something that could be successful.By the end of 2010, Jim and Dan had formed their company, and by January 2011, they had their first acquisition.Just seven years later, Bedrock’s portfolio includes more than 100 properties, mostly concentrated within Detroit’s Central Business District and downtown Cleveland.Now, downtown Detroit is home to tenants like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft. Jim shares proudly that the residential, retail, restaurant, transportation, and arts scene have all been growing steadily.If a developer calls me up and says I’m interested in Detroit, I’m like ‘Great, let me tour you through everything we’ve done, let me teach you what we know, and let me help you to acquire something and compete with me.’ …The more you help people, the better it is.Advice:Jim’s parting advice is that it’s okay to fail because that’s how we all learn and get better.

Creating and Building:Born in McComb, MS, Keith says he could have written the book “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his own life. Since his parents weren’t really in the picture, his grandmother raised him from a young age in Pasadena, TX. He went on to graduate from the University of Texas, receiving his MBA with a concentration in real estate shortly thereafter.“I was just intrigued always with the idea of creating and building things.”After working as a management consultant at Deloitte, he interviewed at Century Development and joined the team. This is where he met Ric Campo, who became his long-time business partner.During that time, they realized that considering Houston’s economic recovery status, short-term leases were going to do the best, so they focused their business on apartments.From there, Keith and Ric began buying apartments in Houston and working with investors, until the RTC came along and the one-off asset game didn’t work anymore. They struck a deal with investor Louis Ranieri, which allowed them to play the RTC game, and their portfolio grew to 7,000 apartments. When Ranieri wanted to sell, Ric and Keith didn’t want to give up this company they had created. They crafted a plan and kept the business, taking the company public in 1993.Camden MilestonesKeith has several highlights that he says were “Watershed” moments for Camden’s trajectory.When they went from private to public, this became a huge watershed moment because they weren’t spending time raising capital. Keith says that raising capital is now less than 5% of his time.They went through three public-to-public mergers, which grew the geography of their company beyond Texas.They created the first revenue management system for the multi-family business with the software firm, RealPage. This solved the problem of pricing apartment rents in real time.The first year they made it on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For was in 2007, and they’ve been on it for 11 consecutive years now. He says it’s the benchmark, not just for Camden, but of how far the apartment industry has come.Keith and Ric, as President and CEO respectively, continue as partners and collaborators to this day, essentially as co-heads of the business. This type of collaboration is unique in the REIT industry.Creating Company CultureDuring a facilitator meeting where they discussed the importance of taking a stand, everyone in the meeting had to stand up and pitch their goal for the company. Keith stood up and said that in five years, Camden Property Trust will be recognized as one of the best companies to work for in this country. Two years later, they made Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.This company culture wasn’t born in that meeting however, it was there from the beginning.“It’s just setting up an environment where people can do their best work, where they’re rewarded for it both financially and emotionally… and then just being unyielding in terms of good and bad behavior.”IndustryKeith says Camden’s company culture is not a spectator sport, but an inclusive, respectful, integrity-driven environment.Keith’s Advice:Make it your mission to improve people’s lives, and you measure your success by that.Videos:Camden’s Gotta Feeling!Website:Camden Living

Sam Zell, one of the most storied names in real estate, describes his riveting journey from his parents’ escape from Poland in 1939 as Hitler invaded to how he built his real estate empire at Equity International, created the modern REIT, and lead the industry public.More about Equity Group InvestmentsForbes Magazine on Sam Zell’s successAm I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

A-P Hurd was not planning on going into the real estate industry. After working in journalism and on the trading floor, she then landed a leadership role at Touchstone. Her unique perspective on business encourages people to use their skillsets to allow them to do their best work.Executive Q+A: A-P Hurd’s Urban ExpressionRead more about AP’s book The Carbon Efficient City

After growing up in Israel and serving in the army, Gadi Kaufmann came to the U.S. on a scholarship to Brigham Young University. His drive led him to an interview with RCLCO during college; and now, after 38 years and four careers at RCLCO, he has transitioned to the current managing director and CEO.Read Gadi’s biography

Ellen Winkler became an accidental developer when she moved her video production firm to Denver and failed to find a fun, yet collaborative work environment. Now she is creating coworking spaces all around the city.Read more about Ellen’s backgroundRead more about Drumbeat

Jonathan Rose left his family’s multigenerational real estate company to start his own for-profit mission-driven development firm. His passion for creating communities of opportunity is strengthened through the belief that we all share a compassion that makes the world a better place.More information on the Rose CompaniesMore information on the Well Tempered City

Leaving a legacy is easy for Phil Freelon, who founded one of the largest African American–owned architecture firms. With numerous cultural institutions under his belt, including the newest Smithsonian museum, he is motivated to design places where the public can convene.Phil Freelon’s bioRead more about the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and CultureRead more about Phil Freelon

Mary Ann Tighe didn’t know what commercial real estate was until she was 36 years old. With a successful career in the Carter/Mondale White House before launching the A&E network, she recognized her knack for deal-making and is now one of the country’s most prolific brokers.Read Mary Ann Tighe’s bioRead more about Mary Ann’s career

Chip Conley started one of the country’s first boutique hotel chains, Joie de Vivre, when he was just 26 years old. After selling the company, he joined the startup Airbnb at age 52, despite the fact that the young founders were primed to disrupt his industry.Read more about Chip’s leadershipRead more about Chip’s role at AirbnbPre-order Chip’s newest book, Wisdom @ Work: The Making of a Modern ElderLearn more about Chip’s other books*This is a rebroadcast of our previous interview with Chip Conley.

A chance meeting on a playground led Kevin Plank, Under Armour’s founder, to ask Tom Geddes to oversee his private investments. Tom’s leadership is enhancing Baltimore’s waterfront and how the public experiences the city.Learn more about Plank IndustriesLearn more about Tom Geddes

Janet Marie Smith had a homerun vision for Camden Yards, the first baseball stadium in 70 years that was built within the existing urban fabric of any U.S. city. With stadium work in Boston and Atlanta also under her belt, she is now enhancing 55-year-old Dodger Stadium.Learn more about Janet Marie SmithRead more about Janet Marie Smith’s involvement with Camden Yards

Following the advice of his grandfather, Andrés Duany knows he can either be popular or indispensable, and he’s chosen the latter. Made famous by his traditional neighborhood design of Seaside, Florida, Duany has led the charge in creating new urbanist communities.Learn more about Andrés Duany and DPZRead more about New Urbanism

How does one prepare for an unexpected crisis? Scott Cowen managed to lead Tulane University through Hurricane Katrina, strengthening the student body and city of New Orleans in the process by strategically integrating the two.

MaryAnne Gilmartin defies many conventions in the real estate world. She wears high heels to construction sites of major New York City projects and has achieved the top leadership position in a family business where she has no relation.

Growing up, Toby Bozzuto did not want to work in the family business—yet now he is the CEO. Toby began his career in the music industry but was drawn into the real estate world because of the foundational values his father set for the Bozzuto Group.

Kimber Lanning has operated an independent record store in downtown Phoenix for 30 years. Her experience as a small business owner led her to start Local First Arizona, advocating for self-reliant, unique downtowns that can support the little guy.Learn more about Kimber Lanning and Local First Arizona

Teens using power tools? That’s the foundation for Alex Gilliam’s two nonprofits. He brings together youth to physically build amenities in their struggling neighborhoods. These students learn how to engage civically while changing the urban landscape.Learn more about Alex Gilliam and Public WorkshopWatch Alex Gilliam’s TED Talk

Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood was one of the most blighted in the country, impeding on the city’s economic development. Leveraging creative financing as well as civic and corporate partnerships, Steve Leeper has led 3CDC in the transformation of this historic neighborhood.Learn more about Steve Leeper and 3CDCLearn more about the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood

A lifelong New Yorker, Alicia Glen serves as the city’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development. Why did she leave the private sector for public service, and what are the challenges for New York given one of its own is entering the White House?Read Alicia Glen’s bio

Egbert Perry of the Integral Group developed the national model for mixed-income housing. He has since been changing the notion of which industry sectors people of color are accepted, and successfully forging into market-rate commercial projects.Read more about Egbert Perry and the Integral GroupRead a 1998 article on the creation of Centennial Place

As an African American and Asian American woman in office, Mayor Marilyn Strickland challenges our notion of what makes a strong leader. She talks about her journey, starting with a job at the headquarters of Starbucks to earning the top post of an international port city. Mayor Strickland is a trustee of ULI and was a Rose Center for Public Leadership and Land Use fellow.Read Mayor Strickland’s bioRead Mayor Strickland’s 2016 State of the City speech

Steve Wilson is the founder of 21c Museum Hotels, started in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2006. These unique concept hotels, which incorporate gallery space for Wilson’s expansive art collection, are a unique way to help revitalize the downtowns of midsized cities with a growing tourism industry. Wilson and his wife now have seven other hotels open or under construction around the United States. In this episode, Wilson talks about his unusual path to creating such a unique revitalization technique and the impact it has had in his hometown and beyond.Read more about Steve Wilson and 21c Museum HotelsRead the ULI Case Study on the 21c Museum Hotel Cincinnati