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Matthew Aldana
Danny Baker
Drew Aspinwall
Danielle Ash
Ryan J. Ambs
Design by Chris Nicholls
Illustration: xy/Adobe Stock
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Joey Woodman
Tanner P. Wilson
Sebastian Wilner
Elyse C. Welch
Andrew Veatch
Amit Tyagi
RJ Trowbridge
Christopher D. Todd
Carter Thurmond
Hunter Warner
Maggie Ward
Graham Wahlberg
Arvin Vohra
Marko E. Velazquez
Trent Saunders
Ari Sasson
Anoush Sarkissian
Drew Sanden
Marc Rutzen
Paul Russo
Cody A. Ruegger
Alex Rossinsky
Michael Ritz
Michael L. Riopel
Alfredo Riascos
CamRon Price
Sebastian Post
Emily Pollard
Brandon Polakoff
Matthew R. Peurach
Shivan Perera
John Pawlowski
Trey Palmedo
Richard Paddock
Seth R. Niedermayer
Nhan Nguyen Le
Justin Myers
Feras Moussa
Matthew Mousavi
Derek Mosiman
Aarica Mims
Alison Mills
Doug R. Middleton
Andrew McNulty
Troy McNamara
Matt K. McLennan
Thanos Matthai
Eleanore “Nora” Martins
Madison Marceau
Kyle Luby
Alexandra J. Loye
Michael Lehmann
Jeff Lefko
Michael Lee
Andy Lee
Chad Lavender
Chad Kurz
Angela Kuo
Amanda Kross
Liam Krahe
Chris Kostyla
Michael J. Kolshak
Cody Kirkpatrick
Emily Kelly
Noah Kaufman
Doug Jones
Allison Johnston Frizzo
Adam Johnson
Tiffany Johnson
Spencer Jackson
Julie Hyson
Jesse Hudson
Kevin Hudak
Nikolette Huberman Jacob
Brian K. Hinds
Terry Herlihy
Jilliene Helman
Alexander Harrold
Lindsey Halter
Whitney Hake
Kate Haas
Jackson G. Grout
Ali Greenwood
Brendan Gibney
Joseph M. Gervino
Alex M. Gendelman
Conrad Geis
Pedro Gassant
Zachary Flora
Jay F. Filley
Jackson Feder
Nicholas R. Falcone
Michael Erickson
Ahmad Elayyan
Julian El-Abidin
Blima Ehrentreu
Matthew Eddy
Josh Eames
Matt Duplantis
Sean Durkin
Kevin L. Dudley
Jerry Doty
Chris Domino
Travis Della Volpe
Michael DeGiorgio
Paige B. Decker
Marcello Cricco-Lizza
Ron Corrao
Alex Capozza
Grant Brutten
Jason Brooks
Kemena Brooks
Nicole Brickhouse
Martin Bravo
Diane Borys
Josh Bishop
Peter Bergan
Ben Barr
Ron Balys
Bret Swango
MaCauley Studdard
Benjamin Steele
Ross H.S. Stackhouse
Christina Sportack
Michael Slovitt
Jeremy Slocumb
Phoebe Slater
Mike Sladich
Richard Simons
Sean Silverbrook
Daniel Siegel
Kabir Seth
Elliott Sellers
Erik Schatz
Starting out in CRE as an analyst, Tanner Wilson has been promoted every two years and in 2023 became Mark IV’s youngest SVP. He is responsible for the top-to-bottom management of nine projects throughout California, working with various asset types, including land, industrial, office and medical office. For example, one of his major projects is the entitlement and development of a 65-acre industrial project in Roseville, CA, and another was a recent conversion of a traditional office building into a medical office building in Irvine. He has worn many different hats, from financial analyst to construction manager and has grown into a role as a conductor who leads a team of analysts and asset managers. He developed a formal analyst training program at Mark IV to attract, train and retain junior professionals, including creating the framework and programs for an analyst training program to prepare young professionals for higher responsibility positions within the firm. While working full-time at Mark IV, Wilson also earned his MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. While at UCLA, he started a real estate resource program for MBA students interested in pursuing a career in real estate and taught an evening class through the school’s real estate club. He also represented UCLA at and was a finalist in multiple national case competitions. Wilson gives back to both the industry and his community as a member of NAIOP’s young professionals group and as a member of NAIOP’s legislative affairs committee, where he has focused on monitoring legislative issues that impact CRE throughout California. In his local community, Wilson has volunteered as a mentor for a college success initiative working with first-generation college-bound students.
Tanner P. Wilson
In an industry where trust is paramount, Joey Woodman’s reputation for honesty and transparency precedes him, earning him the respect and admiration of colleagues and clients alike. He is VP of Foundry Commercial on its industrial brokerage team in Orlando, where he oversees the representation of eight million square feet of industrial space across Central Florida. He navigates both landlord and tenant representation, leveraging his dual perspective to craft innovative deals that drive mutual value. Woodman’s tenure at Foundry has been marked by remarkable growth and achievement. Throughout the past five years, he has consistently doubled his brokerage transactions year-over-year, and last year he achieved 200% revenue growth. This achievement earned him the Overachiever Award at Foundry, recognizing his dedication to securing new business while nurturing collaborative relationships within his team and across the company’s platform. Woodman remains committed to guiding and empowering the next generation of industry professionals and takes time to mentor young associates. Outside of his professional endeavors, Woodman is deeply involved in his community, serving as a mentor to students at Edgewater High School and volunteering for organizations like the Camaraderie Foundation, which provides support to service members and veterans. He began his career in sales at GolfNow, a division of the Golf Channel, where he led his team to excel in transaction fee sales in 2017 and 2018. His transition to commercial real estate was a natural progression, fueled by his lifelong residency in and affection for Central Florida. He joined Foundry Commercial five years ago. Woodman emphasizes the significance of integrity, generosity and hard work as the cornerstone of success in the industry. He stresses the importance of maintaining integrity in all dealings, being generous with knowledge and resources, and putting in relentless hard work. In addition, he highlights the value of fervent curiosity and encourages young professionals to ask questions.
Joey Woodman
Sebastian Wilner is pushing the boundaries of the CRE industry to make it easier and more accessible to everyone through the use of technology. Wilner is using AI technology to transform the way commercial real estate management and transactions work through Keyway, the company he co-founded to address fragmentation in the CRE market. The company has already facilitated more than $300 million in real estate transactions across the multifamily and net lease verticals in nine states. Wilner is the company’s COO where he leads a team of more than 30 individuals across technology, data science and product disciplines and has overseen the development of Keypilot, the real estate co-pilot specifically designed for real estate teams. One of Wilner’s top achievements was leading Keyway’s first fund, which focused on the medical office sector. He worked closely with doctors, dentists and veterinarians to monetize their real estate through sale-leaseback transactions in weeks instead of months. Wilner’s decision to pursue a career in commercial real estate was first driven by his realization that while the single-family home market had undergone a significant transformation and institutionalization, the commercial side of the market had not. He identified an opportunity to provide institutional investors with programmatic access to small-scale commercial real estate through the use of technology. Later he immersed himself in the AI industry, experimenting and developing solutions for an asset class with historically fragmented data and low transparency, aiming to democratize the whole real estate life cycle. For those entering the industry, his advice is to not be afraid to innovate and think differently. “The commercial real estate space is vast, and the use of AI, data science and machine learning to make smarter decisions is only starting to be seen,” he says. “By embracing new technologies and approaches, aspiring professionals can set themselves apart and make significant contributions to the industry.”
Sebastian Wilner
Carolina Retail Experts partner Elyse Welch views herself as an extension of her clients, creating value beyond the deal. She leads the firm’s tenant representation specialty group executing multistate tenant expansion plans. She and two partners launched the majority female-owned CRE brokerage firm in 2020, when she was just 31 years old. During that time, Welch also was active in CREW Charleston, where she created a virtual luncheon series during the height of the pandemic with weekly content that grew a statewide following. In 2021, she was the chapter’s president and led the return of in-person events while expanding the chapter’s membership by 25%. As a beacon for women across the industry, Welch was featured in Rod Santomassimo’s Book “Knowing Isn’t Doing,” discussing her journey navigating becoming a mother while practicing commercial real estate brokerage in a male-dominated industry. She got her start in CRE following a notable volleyball career at the College of Charleston, where she studied real estate and was especially intrigued by CRE courses. In one class, a charismatic and engaging professional within retail CRE brokerage spoke, and Welch wanted to work for him. During a meeting, John Orr tried to discourage her from getting into the business. Undeterred, Welch thanked him for his advice but says she intended to work in commercial real estate. Orr hired Welch on the spot and on reflection says, “I wasn’t sure how good she was going to be, but I was not going to find out she was the best on someone else’s team.” Welch and Orr have been partners since that day and launched Carolina Retail Experts with Lindsey Halter in 2020. Her advice to young professionals is to find a mentor or join a team to learn and create value fastest.
Elyse C. Welch
Andrew Veatch was attracted to the creativity and complexity of the commercial real estate industry, where he enjoys the variables and opportunity to implement his vision. Veatch got his start in the industry while he was still in college, working part-time for the Downtown Tucson Business Improvement District, which was focused on attracting developers and tenants to the area. Through this experience, he developed an interest in the principal and brokerage side of the industry. He joined a local NAI brokerage office, where he focused on retail leasing and assisting with day-to-day operations, before joining SimonCRE in 2017 as part of its development team and transitioning to the acquisitions and leasing team in 2018. Since 2021, Veatch has been instrumental in closing more than 50 retail developments. These developments have varied in scale and complexity from single-tenant build-to-suits to large-scale projects, including 100,000-square-foot value-added shopping centers. Today, he is director of acquisitions and leasing, where he plays a crucial role in the firm’s strategic growth, focusing on leasing and retail property acquisitions across the US and leading a team that has closed high-value projects worth more than $250 million. He has been integral in planning Village at Prasada and Prasada North, securing a wide range of big box retailers and restaurants for the residents of Surprise, Arizona. To young professionals, Veatch advises being patient. “Success in this field requires building meaningful relationships and gaining a complete understanding of how the various facets of the industry work together, such as capital markets, construction, debt, leasing, local government, etc.,” he says. “Don’t fall for the false narrative that financial success is often achieved in a short period of time. Instead, focus on continuous networking and learning. As you gain more experience, you will see your success grow.”
Andrew Veatch
Amit Tyagi joined Gantry in 2011 as an associate and rose through the ranks to become VP before joining the firm’s executive committee as a partner this year. He is now responsible for leading a team of loan producers in the firm’s Los Angeles office. During his tenure with Gantry, Tyagi has been directly involved in securing more than $3.75 billion of loans covering a wide range of loan structures for a variety of asset classes. His expertise goes beyond traditional permanent and bridge loans, including complex construction-to-permanent loans, pre-stabilized asset financings, bond-style financings and other structured financings. As a graduate of UCLA, Tyagi remains an active member on the board of the school’s Real Estate Alumni Group, and he is also an active member in ULI, NAIOP, CREFC and other industry groups. He got his start at Gantry through an introduction by a fraternity brother. Having grown up around real estate, it was a natural fit for Tyagi. His father was a civil engineer and developed a few small apartment buildings in West L.A. that Tyagi’s family operated. He also had an interest in finance and numbers during college and because he resisted pursuing a career in his father’s industry, he started his career in wealth management, which he quickly discovered was not a good fit. Instead, he pursued mortgage banking, which allowed him to blend his familiarity with real estate and his interest in finance. “The jump from an analyst or associate role to production is daunting, even for the best of us,” he advises young professionals. “For those just entering the industry, my advice would be to find a firm that fits your personality, aligns with your values, and has senior leadership that nurtures career growth.”
Amit Tyagi
As a Kansas City native, RJ Trowbridge has always been interested in creating a bigger and brighter future for his home city. At a young age, when large commercial real estate developments and opportunities were revitalizing downtown Kansas City, he was inspired to play a role in helping shape its future. He got that chance when he was recruited to join JLL in 2018 to spearhead the office’s landlord representation team and grow market share in Kansas City. Throughout the past five years under his leadership as SVP of midwest office brokerage, JLL has moved from 9th in market share to become the market leader in landlord representation services. Trowbridge’s responsibilities include leading and expanding the JLL Kansas City office, increasing agency leasing market share throughout the city, and leading the office in innovative data collection and dissemination to support client needs. He also leads JLL’s healthcare team in Kansas City and has grown that team to be the market leader in tenant and landlord advisory services in the market. In 2023, Trowbridge was recognized as the top office producer in the JLL Kansas City office with more than $57 million in lease value production. In addition, Trowbridge mentors four junior brokers and serves on the Junior Achievement Kansas City board of directors and executive committee. His advice to new industry professionals is to listen to everyone around them to truly understand their goals, opportunities, challenges and related realities they are trying to convey. “All of this information is useful at one point or another – the more you listen, the more you can respond in appropriate ways and add value. A mentor of mine once says, “[real estate] brokerage is like a bus stop, keep showing up and the bus will eventually come.”
RJ Trowbridge
Growing up in Bergen County, NJ, Christopher Todd was inspired by the constantly evolving landscape around him and was drawn to the commercial real estate industry at an early age. After graduating from Manhattan College with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a minor in finance in 2013, he joined NAI James E. Hanson, where he has worked for 11 years and continually expanded his expertise. Since joining the firm, Todd has established himself as a respected commercial real estate broker in the highly competitive northern New Jersey market and was promoted to managing director of institutional services in 2023. He is responsible for guiding institutional clients through all facets of sale and lease negotiations and providing expertise on current market trends to inform decisions. Since 2017, Todd and his team have completed nearly $700 million worth of transactions. He is a member of the Industrial and Office Real Estate Brokers Association, ULI and SIOR. Todd believes it’s essential for those entering the commercial real estate brokerage industry to surround themselves with the right people who can provide valuable guidance and mentorship. “Learning from those who have made their mark in the industry and continue to expand their knowledge, young professionals can rapidly evolve from the onset of their careers and position themselves to achieve substantial milestones,” he says.
Christopher D. Todd
Transwestern managing director Carter Thurmond has not only risen to leadership quickly but also has made a name for himself with an ambitious vision to bolster the firm’s industrial footprint in Texas. Thurmond joined Transwestern in 2016 and specializes in all areas of industrial real estate, including project leasing, tenant and buyer representation, property disposition, build-to-suit projects and investment sales. Throughout his career at Transwestern, Thurmond has completed more than 450 industrial transactions. After spending several years on the Houston industrial team, he relocated to Austin to lead the firm’s Central Texas industrial team, covering the Interstate 35 corridor from Austin to San Antonio. As a San Antonio native, his deep understanding of the Central Texas industrial market has allowed him to build successful relationships with the brokerage community, and in the past three years, he has completed 65 transactions totaling nearly 1.6 million square feet with an aggregate value of $117.2 million. He won Transwestern National’s Young Gun Award in 2022 but points to his five-person team as his greatest accomplishment. Thurmond’s journey into commercial real estate was serendipitous. He transitioned from oil and gas due to an enticing opportunity under Brian Gammill at Transwestern in Houston. His advice for newcomers underscores the importance of humility, patience and perseverance. Emphasizing the need for a gradual learning curve, Thurmond advocates for keeping one’s head down and maintaining realistic expectations. He highlights the significance of patience in building relationships and expertise, acknowledging the time required to establish oneself in the industry.
Carter Thurmond
Hunter Warner is a principal for Lee & Associates – LA North/ Ventura Inc. specializing in the leasing and sale of industrial properties throughout Southern California. Specifically, he focuses on the territory of the San Fernando Valley, where he was born and raised, and has leveraged the knowledge that comes with being a native to swiftly identify some of the region’s most valuable properties and locations for future development. He was mentored by his father, who taught him the fundamentals of CRE brokerage early in his career. These factors have contributed to his success in securing nearly $116 million across leasing and sale transactions in 2023. He was named Rookie of the Year in 2016 for his performance as an associate during his first year and became the firm’s youngest principal the next year. Since the pandemic, he has led a series of notable transactions. Last year, he facilitated the sale of 1101 California Street, Redlands, a 16.88-acre land transaction for a total consideration of $44.5 million. The property was initially a defunct water park with a price per-square-foot of $60, making it an attractive investment opportunity for the buyer, North Palisades Partners. Inspired to participate in the environmental conservation movement, Warner started his first business before he graduated high school selling tote bags to replace plastics. This gave him tangible experience running a small business, managing inventory and other business operations that help him support his clients’ business strategies today. He enjoyed being his own boss and has maintained an entrepreneurial spirit throughout his career. To be successful in the commercial real estate industry, Hunter notes that “you have to have an entrepreneurial mindset, and you need to be self-motivated. No one will push you to get deals done more than yourself.”
Hunter Warner
Maggie Ward’s love for architecture and design blossomed at an early age when a school teacher challenged students to design their perfect school, a project she embraced wholeheartedly. She also derived inspiration from her mother, a lighting designer who taught Ward about design. She started her career working as an architect on single-family residential, hospitality, multifamily, historical rehabilitation and mixed-use projects, but it wasn’t until she started working on larger, commercial projects that she identified that her main interest in the architectural community was living spaces. As an associate principal at Cooper Carry, Ward is an expert on complex light-frame wood construction, specifically in mid-rise, mixed-use development. She has been a large part of the development process for several projects spanning the Southeast, amounting to nearly three million square feet of building area completed or under construction. These projects include Modera Germantown Phase I and II in Nashville, Modera Nations in Nashville, Modera Decatur in Decatur, Georgia and River Works at Eastern Wharf in Savannah. Her portfolio includes more than 1,400 residential units, 44,000 square feet of retail and more than 2,000 parking spaces. Ward has a passion for quality control and standardization and has helped streamline processes in all aspects of the programs used to complete a design. Her advice to young architects is to find their passion within the industry, as well as each project they work on. For Ward, this can be something as small as a well-organized meeting and as large as a project managed, designed and built well, and one that functions for years to come. “This industry is amazing as there is always more to learn; just as our buildings grow, we grow with them,” she says.
Maggie Ward
As VP of investment management at Goodman, Graham Wahlberg raises capital for the company, oversees the company’s investment strategy and leads a team of 12 across its asset and investment management divisions. He is accountable for the performance of Goodman’s flagship US fund, GNAP, through strategic capital deployment and portfolio management. His achievements include orchestrating a $2.5 billion equity raise for GNAP, navigating complex debt capital raising totaling $1 billion, and driving the fund’s strategic pivot to embrace new market opportunities and product types. To ensure Goodman stays ahead in a competitive landscape, Wahlberg explores and invests in niche markets. During recent market challenges, he has remained steadfast in his commitment to his team and the company’s investors, ensuring transparent communication and a vision for the future. He mentors the next generation of real estate professionals through NAIOP and participates in the organization’s research foundation. Outside of work, he volunteers with homeless and at-risk youth. Wahlberg’s parents built an industrial warehouse when he was a child. That early exposure to the power of property development to shape livelihoods and economies ignited his passion for CRE. He began his career in asset management, where the potential to impact the landscape and community through strategic development became clear. His advice to newcomers is to prioritize networking and learn the industry’s intricacies through informational interviews. “This hands-on approach will offer insights that are rarely found in textbooks,” he says. “Always provide value, whether in an internship, a junior role, or in interactions with industry veterans. Excellence is expected, but being proactive and adding value is what sets you apart.”
Graham Wahlberg
Redaptive founder and CEO Arvin Vohra popularized the lighting-as-a-service model and later the energy-as-a-service model to help CRE owners and operators reduce their energy spending without impacting their internal budgets. He made his move to the industry after learning that 30% of energy used in buildings is wasted, accounting for billions of dollars lost and tons of greenhouse gas emitted. He launched the Redaptive ONE platform, which leverages a proprietary energy meter to measure and identify energy-saving opportunities through retrofits, LED lighting conversions and solar installations. He leads the firm’s US and India teams and has overseen multiple funding rounds bringing Redaptive from a seed-sized start-up to a Series-E industry leader. Since its founding, the firm has eliminated more than three billion kWh in energy waste from the built environment. Vohra’s advice to others in the industry is that the effects of climate change are becoming an increasingly pressing issue for the built environment. “If we don’t adapt to reduce energy, implement sustainable solutions, and make this easy for the stakeholders involved to make the transition to net zero, we’ll never make it,” says Vohra. “Incentivizing the commercial real estate industry through the benefits of decarbonization, we can make this a win-win narrative that reduces energy and waste and can also be an economic and money-saving benefit for the company.”
Arvin Vohra
Coming from humble beginnings in Chula Vista, CA, Marko Velazquez would see luxury homes in magazines and dream of becoming an architect. However, he found his true calling while working a summer job at a local real estate office. At 18 years old, Velazquez passed both the real estate license and mortgage originator exams and began selling homes and securing mortgages to pay for college. He learned about investment banking during a summer internship at Citigroup in New York City, which offered him a full-time job in its real estate investment banking group when he graduated. Velazquez is one of four founding partners at Palladius Capital Management which launched in 2021 and played a critical role in the structural, strategic, and operational ideation of the startup. That included raising a $15 million Series A round to capitalize the management entity and subsequently securing a sizable equity subscription line to rapidly acquire assets. Today, the firm manages and operates $800 million of real estate across the US through various equity and debt vehicles. As a senior managing director, Velazquez oversees corporate growth strategies, including business development, acquisitions, capital raising and digital technology. Colleagues say he is truly accessible to team members and is actively engaged across all aspects of the business. In addition to launching Palladius, his most notable achievement during the past three years is expanding the team from four people to 13 across Austin, Los Angeles and New York. He advises young entrants to the industry that things can and will go wrong but to stay the course.
Marko E. Velazquez
Colliers SVP of location strategy and workforce analytics Bret Swango has made a career out of applying a data-driven approach and helping companies devise location strategies to address business challenges. He developed Colliers’ award- winning location intelligence platform to help mitigate risk for clients and founded its workforce analytics consulting practice five years ago. As head of the firm’s location strategy practice in the Americas, Swango advises corporate clients on how to most effectively leverage their physical footprint. He also has helped develop unique tools and analytical solutions to unearth previously unseen risks to mitigate costs. For example, the firm’s landlord vulnerability tool can identify impairments in the capital stack that provide tenants disproportionately favorable leverage to generate better-than-market rental rates. Chris Zlocki, Colliers’ head of client experience and EVP of occupier services, described Swango as a generational talent who brings the unique blend of deep curiosity, active listening and rigorous analytical skills to problem-solving. “He does all this while being a brand ambassador for Colliers through his collaborative approach, enterprising spirit and infectious passion for creating memorable and valuable experiences for clients and colleagues that work around him.” Swango says his grandfather taught him the value of being different and says he brings a highly quantitative lens to the world of CRE and location advisory. Historically, CRE has had sparse and poor data, but in the past few years, there has been a proliferation of alternative data sets that enabled him to bring his skills from another data-rich industry to disrupt commercial real estate. “I consider myself lucky to be in the right place at the right time,” he says, emphasizing the importance of differentiating yourself by developing a specialization or niche skill set.
Bret Swango
In a relatively short time, MaCauley Studdard has risen from an analyst at ElmTree Funds to VP of investments and now managing director, a trajectory fueled by a relentless work ethic. He has been instrumental in ElmTree’s growth from $1 billion AUM in 2016 to $6.6 billion AUM in 2023. In his prior roles, Studdard underwrote $5 billion of net lease transactions for the firm. Today, he manages and oversees the firm’s strategy and research department and leads a team responsible for establishing and monitoring investment guidelines and strategies, evaluating potential investment opportunities, optimizing portfolio construction and capital structures for investments, and performing and publishing research on the real estate industry and financial markets. He also spends time on the portfolio management and disposition side of ElmTree’s operation involved in strategizing about financing, debt and exit strategies to maximize investor returns. In addition, he works closely with the acquisitions team, evaluating markets and sourcing and assessing assets prior to acquisition, and serves on the firm’s investment committee, helping select which properties to acquire. Studdard is often on the front lines, serving as the face of ElmTree to current and potential investors. He spends a significant amount of time meeting with institutional investors and decision-makers for pension funds and endowments across the US. Studdard always had an interest in finance and investments and was particularly drawn to private investing and the world of commercial real estate. In college, he worked in equity research and subsequently got a job doing business valuations for companies bought by PE firms. For young professionals who wish to follow in his footsteps, Studdard emphasizes the importance of being highly analytical and extremely diligent as well as asking questions and being willing to admit what you don’t know.
MaCauley Studdard
With both parents working as real estate attorneys, Benjamin Steele grew up around commercial real estate and would often visit development projects, which sparked an interest in the tangible nature of real estate. Malls and hospitality are especially interesting to Steele because his father worked at GGP and he grew up around malls. Steele earned an undergraduate degree in hospitality and initially started working in asset management analytics and reporting at TIAA/Nuveen. After two years, he left for a role at FTI Consulting where today he is senior director of real estate advisory. He is involved in a wide array of client engagements, from development advisory and feasibility to valuation and litigation, bankruptcy and restructuring. He has developed expertise in complex financial analyses and creative solutions, including helping a developer optimize floor planning for a residential condo development project, helping value properties with complex equity structures and use restrictions, and advising a REIT with an out-of-court debt restructuring with its creditors. One of his most significant achievements was providing complex financial analyses to Amtrak for the redevelopment of Union Station in Washington D.C. His advice for those entering the industry is to not let the ‘fake it till you make it’ mantra stifle intellectual curiosity. “Real estate has a lot of nuances and complexities. I’m still learning new things within the industry,” he says. “Do not let the fear of not looking smart get in the way of your ability to learn. Ask questions when you have not heard of or do not understand a concept. Do not be afraid to say I don’t know when someone asks you if you are familiar with something. Nobody expects you to be an expert on day one of your career.”
Benjamin Steele
Ross Stackhouse co-founded Tidewater Capital, a real estate investment and development company focused exclusively on the Bay Area, and has grown it from scratch to more than 20 projects throughout the region. He has also played a key role in raising the firm’s multiple discretionary investment vehicles anchored by institutional endowments, foundations and family offices, exceeding its initial target of $200 million in equity commitments for its third discretionary fund last year. Stackhouse completed 200 units of housing in Mid-Market, as well as a 172-room hotel in Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood, both of which are mixed-use, transit-oriented buildings with ground-floor retail. He also recently won approval for both a 380-unit high-rise residential project in Downtown Oakland and a 300-unit mid-rise residential project in West Oakland. He supports the industry through service on the Bay Area Council’s housing committee as well as membership with ULI and the US Green Building Council. Stackhouse manages Tidewater’s philanthropic activities, which are deeply rooted in San Francisco’s Tenderloin area, where Tidewater opened its first office. Stackhouse majored in environmental studies with a focus on sustainable design and the built environment at Brown University. Throughout his college career, he pursued internships in architectural design and urban planning, which stirred a passion in him for the financial and entrepreneurial side of the industry. He leveraged that into his first job at the JBG Cos. in Washington D.C. as a financial analyst working on investments, asset management and development projects. While there, he met Craig Young and the pair worked together on several investments before eventually founding Tidewater together.
Ross H.S. Stackhouse
With a background in CRE accounting and experience across a variety of asset classes, Christina Sportack brings a deep understanding of market dynamics and keen analytical skills to her role as a senior asset manager at The RMR Group. She is responsible for properties on the East Coast, from New England to Virginia, as well as RMR’s Hawaii portfolio. Last year, Sportack negotiated and executed 1.9 million square feet of new and renewal leasing, including leasing industrial assets in Hawaii despite being based in RMR’s Massachusetts corporate office. Many of her completed deals in Hawaii are for 15- or 20-year terms and have seen significant roll-ups in GAAP rents, coupled with low or nonexistent concessions. She is currently leading a leasing effort for a 2.2-million-square-foot parcel of land in Hawaii, which requires working with local and national companies. Sportack was an assistant asset manager in 2020 and has progressed by embracing increasing responsibility and supporting asset managers who followed in her footsteps. Throughout the pandemic, she focused on retaining tenants through uncertain times, including minimizing risk and the exposure of rolling leases, navigating return-to-office trends and planning for the future needs of tenants. She got her start in the industry as an intern at RMR in college with the asset management and leasing teams. While working as a property accountant for Boston Properties after graduation, she discovered a passion for leasing and asset strategy and was drawn to the tangible nature of CRE. Her advice to those entering the industry is to focus on building and nurturing a network. “Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself, raise your hand or ask for the opportunities that you want,” she says.
Christina Sportack
Alfredo Riascos has played an important role in the growth of Miami’s urban core by brokering landmark transactions within the city’s most recognized neighborhoods. Today, many of those transactions have helped shape the city’s skyline and social fabric. Riascos began working in the CRE industry in 2007 when Miami’s market revolved around hospitality and was experiencing little growth outside of the Miami Beach and Brickell areas, but he believed in the city’s economic and cultural potential. In 2009, Riascos began seeking business in Miami’s Wynwood and Midtown neighborhoods and has since become the go-to broker for renowned artists and galleries looking for properties in the area. Between 2009 and 2012, Riascos participated in more gallery-related transactions than any other broker in the industry, contributing to Wynwood’s transformation into a globally recognized art district. As these neighborhoods continued to attract the attention of more institutional investors, Alfredo was on the front lines capturing business and building his network. With a decade of experience under his belt, Riascos founded Gridline Properties in 2018. Two of Riascos’ biggest accomplishments in the past three years have been the sale of the Little River shopping destination, Ebb & Flow, an $18.15 million transaction and one of the largest sales in the neighborhood, and representing real estate development company Rilea Group in the purchase of two lots where the group will develop two luxury apartment and retail developments called Mohawk at Wynwood and The Rider at Wynwood. Both transactions totaled nearly $35 million. His advice to industry newcomers is to seek educational opportunities, find a niche, play the long game and don’t cut corners. “CRE is full of people looking to take shortcuts and make a quick commission,” he says. “Always go the extra mile; be honest and transparent in all your deals.”
Alfredo Riascos
CamRon Price’s entry into the commercial real estate appraisal field was influenced by personal connections and a desire for a career change. Encouraged by a college friend who was an appraiser and inspired by his wife’s experience as an industrial broker, Price took the leap to CRE appraisal with limited knowledge of the field after being a youth pastor. Price has since built a successful career path, transitioning from roles at The Multifamily Advisory and Lowery Property Advisors LLC to his current position at Apprise by W&D. In just two years, Price has generated more than $1 million in revenue while leading a team of five producers and associates in the Southwest. His responsibilities span from procuring work, writing and reviewing appraisals, growing and training team members, and attending conferences to representing the Apprise brand. He is the youngest senior director at the firm and is known for his outspoken nature and magnetic presence in group settings. Beyond his professional achievements, Price is recognized as the unofficial social coordinator of the Dallas office, dedicated to fostering a positive workplace culture where employees thrive and feel connected. During uncertain times marked by a reduction in the company’s workforce, Price demonstrated exceptional leadership by taking on additional assignments outside his usual region to ensure the timely completion of a large Fannie Mae portfolio. For those entering the industry, he emphasizes the importance of expanding one’s network early and consistently seeking opportunities to connect with seasoned professionals who have decades of experience. He underscores the significance of humility, citing a quote that resonates with him: “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”
CamRon Price
As a relatively new entrant into the fund management business, Sebastian Post has helped create a new business line for Fisher Brothers and establish Lionheart Strategic Management LLC as an institutional credit investor through major markets in the US. As managing director and co-head of investments at Lionheart, Post has overseen the investment of more than $1 billion of investor capital across various major markets in the US since 2017 and has led the firm in expanding investor relationships, managing the firm’s investment vehicles, and developing strategy for the firm’s operations. Since joining Fisher Brothers in 2011, Post has led the execution of more than $2 billion of real estate equity investments and more than $5 billion of real estate credit investments throughout the US. He has contributed greatly to Lionheart’s portfolio, which includes more than $5.5 billion in total deal capitalizations to date. Post knew he wanted to be involved in the real estate industry from a young age. His father was an ironworker, and Post would tag along on construction site visits as a kid, which sparked an early interest in and curiosity about buildings and real estate. He went on to study finance at the University of Central Florida and received a master of science degree in real estate finance and investment from New York University. To those interested in entering the real estate industry, Post advises networking as much as possible. “This industry is very relationship-based and relies on building knowledge and insight from your peers,” he says.
Sebastian Post
Emily Pollard started her career in architecture, fashion and design and was working as a freelance project manager and banker when the need for health insurance prompted her to seek a career change 10 years ago. She joined BKM Capital Partners in 2015 as a marketing specialist and established the firm’s corporate marketing and communications department, developed a team responsible for executing insight-driven marketing strategies across diverse channels, and implemented a comprehensive outreach program, increasing exposure to investors and the real estate sector. Recently she was promoted to senior director of marketing and communications at the firm after helping to scale the company, its processes, its reputation and its brand to more than 10 million square feet under management as the firm acquired $520 million in assets. Pollard is responsible for promoting the company’s message and brand by creating content for investment strategies, expanding on key platform highlights, communicating unique value propositions, and curating various marketing materials and media responses. In addition, Pollard co-founded and co-chairs BKM’s Women’s Network and is a founding member of BKM’s ESG committee. She is currently leading the firm’s first Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark assessment and artificial intelligence/business intelligence strategic plan. She is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst charterholder and is currently an active member of the American Marketing Association, where she judges annual collegiate case study competitions, the American Institute of Graphic Arts and CREW Orange County, where she serves on the CREW Connections Committee. Her advice to newcomers is to find a mentor and say yes to meetings and projects even if it’s uncomfortable. “Don’t be afraid to fail or go against the majority,” she says. “Resilience is one of the best skills you can have and you’ll never make your mark or make change if you always play it safe.”
Emily Pollard
One of the youngest principals at Avison Young, Brandon Polakoff has been involved in transactions totaling more than $3 billion since joining the firm in 2018. He has consistently been the top producer for Avison Young Tri-State Investment Sales since its inception and has also earned Avison Young’s Circle of Excellence award every year since 2019. As executive director of Tri-State Investment Sales at Avison Young’s New York City office, he oversees and leads investment sales transactions within the Tri-State area. His top sales during the past three years include the $13.65 million off-market sale of the UWS portfolio, the $14.5 million sale of the 53 Catherine + five Monroe Street property and the $10.5 million sale of 422 E 81st Street. He chose a career in commercial real estate due to a combination of passion and opportunity. Having previously worked in the investment sales group at Cushman & Wakefield, where he was involved in transactions totaling more than $3 billion, Polakoff’s journey into commercial real estate began with a fascination for the dynamics of property markets and a drive to excel in a competitive industry. Beyond his professional achievements, Polakoff’s dedication extends to community service, where he serves as an academic tutor for Harlem Lacrosse mentoring at-risk youth. For those entering the CRE industry, he emphasizes the importance of dedication, perseverance and continuous learning.
Brandon Polakoff
It is not unusual for Morris, Manning & Martin tax partner Matthew Peurach to do a billion dollars worth of commercial real estate transactions each year. He chairs both the firm’s Corporate Transparency Act practice and opportunity zones practice. His responsibilities include advising clients on tax issues associated with real estate and other corporate transactions, including qualified opportunity zone investments, complex like-kind exchanges under Section 1031, affordable housing/low-income housing tax credits, historic tax credits, energy credits and mergers and acquisitions of corporate and flow-through entities. Peurach has become an expert on the Corporate Transparency Act, which ends secrecy around limited liability companies in corporations in real estate, tech and other industries and is expected to impact virtually every real estate deal in the future and fundamentally change reporting obligations. He leads webinars, speaks at conferences, issues client communications, and writes for industry publications about the impact of the coming challenges related to the legislation. Peurach was inspired to enter the legal profession by his father, who was passionate about dealing with complex issues and helping solve problems for people. He started out working in KPMG’s national tax office in Washington D.C. but aspired to expand into tax structuring for commercial real estate and joined MMM in 2013 in a role that got him more involved in corporate structuring and the legal negotiation of transactions. He advises associates to take ownership of their work. “I tell associates to pretend that they have hung their own shingle and that they should not deliver a piece of work product to a partner, client or anyone else unless they would be proud of signing their own name to it for public record,” says Peurach.
Matthew R. Peurach
Shivan Perera’s journey in CRE, spurred by a passion for entrepreneurship, grew out of grassroots involvement in local businesses that led him to join AVANA Cos. in 2016 as a business development officer. He brings a combination of practical expertise, strategic foresight, hands-on experience and visionary leadership to his current role as SVP. Overseeing the back-office lending operations for a network of credit unions, Perera facilitates the provision of secure business loans, allowing these institutions to diversify risk and better serve their communities. Beyond day-to-day operations, Perera structures large commercial real estate deals, where he leverages expertise in managing credit risk and negotiating programmatic partnerships. He orchestrated originations totaling $110 million last year for construction deals tailored explicitly to minority-owned businesses alongside an additional $20 million in general loans. Perera’s innovative mindset led to the creation of a successful cannabis lending arm that has resulted in $18 million in originations within its first two quarters. Beyond these accomplishments, Perera has cemented his expertise through extensive publication contributions and active participation in panels, webinars, and podcasts. His philanthropic involvement includes volunteering at St. Mary’s Food Bank and supporting the American Heart Association. His journey reflects a commitment to innovation, continuous learning, and making a lasting impact in the commercial real estate landscape. While in college, Perera played a pivotal role in successfully launching a local restaurant venture, sparking his interest in the complexities of business and finance. He joined a top five bank after graduation, where he quickly advanced to the business banking division. For aspiring professionals, Perera emphasizes the importance of embracing the unexpected, recognizing that diverse experiences contribute to personal and professional growth.
Shivan Perera
John Pawlowski joined the CRE industry out of a desire to value publicly traded companies and provide clients with actionable investment advice. He stayed in the industry because the landscape is always changing, with economic and secular trends flowing through real estate in interesting ways and market participants’ expectations and pricing of trends always shifting, which keeps the job fresh. Pawlowski is the managing director of residential and health care at Green Street where he oversees the firm’s extensive residential and health care sector research teams. He is a nationally recognized expert in multifamily, single-family rentals, manufactured housing, senior housing, medical office and skilled nursing. He writes insights reports on housing and interest rates, capital expenditures in apartments and senior housing, and the growth prospects of SFR and BTR space, and he is quoted widely in the financial media. His research reports on public companies covered by Green Street are typically among the most highly read, and his stock-picking results have been outstanding for clients. Pawlowski speaks at virtual and in-person events and regularly hosts and joins Green Street webinars to provide sector updates and cover key takeaways from his team’s evolving research. His advice to those entering the industry is the same advice he received from a family member who convinced him to take a job at Green Street – Be a sponge. “Approach the job with the mindset that you are getting paid to learn,” says Pawlowski. “Lean on and collaborate with bright people around you. You can learn a lot from talking to people who have different experiences. You’ll be surprised with how much knowledge compounds over time, and how you get better at the job with each passing year.”
John Pawlowski
Trey Palmedo was raised in a low-income setting and experienced homelessness during his teenage years. He was drawn to the multifamily lending industry because it allowed him to help expand the supply of quality housing – and both create and preserve affordability – through innovative, high-quality financing solutions. With just five years in multifamily originations, Palmedo has already closed more than $1 billion in loan volume, a major achievement for a young originator. As a managing director of originations at NewPoint Real Estate Capital, Palmedo focuses on financing conventional multifamily, workforce housing and affordable housing communities. He is an expert in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Bridge lending programs, and his clients range from local developers to some of the largest apartment owners in the country. Based in Nashville, Palmedo works to place debt nationally and recently closed the largest deal of his career, a $64.8 million Fannie Mae acquisition financing for the purchase of a two-property, 660-unit multifamily portfolio located in Cincinnati. In 2022, he was named one of Nashville’s top 30 under 30 by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which highlights the city’s most active young professionals and philanthropists.
Trey Palmedo
After graduating from the University of North Florida with a degree in building construction management, Richard Paddock began working for a general contractor building healthcare projects. He quickly learned how important quality control and execution are to the patient experience. Following his time building hospitals, Paddock worked for Kindred Healthcare, where he learned more about the real estate and implementation process of developing new hospitals. In 2017, he joined Anchor Health Properties, drawn to its mission-driven work, and today is a partner and SVP of development. With more than 15 years in the industry, Paddock says he is just getting started. Drawing upon his diverse expertise across the healthcare continuum and personal experiences, he strives to balance the needs of clients with how the spaces created will fit into the larger societal whole and how the physical environment influences how we learn, work, socialize, worship, grieve and heal. His real estate experience includes the implementation of acute care and post-acute care projects, the development of both inpatient and outpatient facilities, and execution experience in all five major US geographic regions. Paddock has managed a $200 million public-private partnership with the State of Washington, a $200 million healthcare destination inclusive of a 240,000 square outpatient center and 151-key luxury hotel with The Villages in Florida, and programmatic expansion relationships with Lifepoint Health and Intuitive Health. Throughout the past three years, he led the firm to nearly $1 billion in total deal volume. Paddock advises young people to do multiple internships during college and try different things to understand what aligns with their passions. “I didn’t grow up dreaming of being an executive at a healthcare real estate firm,” says Paddock. “However, through real-life experiences, hard work, mentorship, and an open mind, I found my way and feel blessed to have found my calling.”
Richard Paddock
Julian El-Abidin’s path to commercial real estate was not traditional. He began his career as an investment banking analyst at Wells Fargo Securities working on consumer and gaming investments. After three years, a mentor introduced him to the associate program at CIM Group, and he spent two years learning every real estate asset class across the capital stack. Combining his investment background with his love of cities and urban environments, El-Abidin found a unique niche in commercial real estate. While at CIM Group, he managed The Lot at Formosa, a historic Hollywood film studio spanning 11 acres. He joined Hudson Pacific Properties in 2020 as a senior associate and since joining the firm, he has leveraged his expertise to help the firm expand its Sunset Studios portfolio of purpose-built studios and acquire production services companies. He was involved in underwriting and closing every studio-related deal from late 2020 to mid-2023, in addition to being an integral part of office acquisitions and dispositions. In 2022, El-Abidin took a leading role in Hudson Pacific’s acquisition of Quixote, a premium studio services company that supplies stages, equipment and vehicles to the entertainment industry. He was uniquely situated to execute given his knowledge of corporate valuation and M&A from his prior investment banking experience. El-Abidin is now VP of investments at the firm, where he leads a team of analysts, associates and directors who execute high-caliber deals including acquisitions and dispositions as well as the management of office and studio real estate investments. His advice to those entering the industry is to put in the time and hard work right away. “That hard work will open up opportunities, and when you’re just getting started you can explore every opportunity to find the perfect fit for you.”
Julian El-Abidin
Blima Ehrentreu chose a career in commercial real estate because she believes design can have a positive impact on the world. She leveraged her experience in interior architecture and design to launch The Designers Group, and through hard work and dedication has expanded the firm internationally. As CEO, Ehrentreu is responsible for leading strategy, overseeing design projects and processes, managing a team of more than 40 employees and promoting the firm to potential clients and partners. An example of Ehrentreu’s philosophy is her work in healthcare design. She designs healthcare projects from a hospitality standpoint using cost-effective solutions that promote health and well-being. By incorporating natural elements such as plants, water and sunlight into designs, she creates sustainable, healthy spaces that enhance the quality of life for clients and future generations. In the past three years, Ehrentreu launched the TDG virtual team and established the TDG branding department, and she led the TDG Tech Hub to expand with a focus on exploring artificial intelligence applications. Ehrentreu has a deep commitment to empowering women and driving philanthropy. She has launched several programs to support the brand’s impact-driven ethos, including TDG Gives Back, providing pro-bono designs to nonprofits and charities, TDG Furniture Exchange, an initiative that facilitates no-cost furniture donations for donors and recipients currently operating in three countries, and TDG Insider, an internship initiative that immerses young, aspiring designers through a thoughtfully curated shadowing program. Her advice to those entering the commercial real estate industry is to take calculated risks, stay innovative, work hard and invest in the community to create a positive impact.
Blima Ehrentreu
Matt Eddy’s journey into commercial real estate was fueled by a deep-rooted love for the industry, inspired by his father’s role in teaching real estate courses and his uncle’s involvement in development. Fresh out of college, Eddy initially worked with an experienced broker, and together they founded a company that originated from humble beginnings in a living room and evolved into a substantial office. Building on that entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to success, Eddy consistently ranks among the top producers in the San Gabriel Valley and West Inland Empire regions. He is an SVP at Lee & Associates Los Angeles, which he joined in 2022. He played a pivotal role as a partner in the successful start-up of the new office, showcasing his strategic acumen and leadership capabilities. Eddy’s primary responsibilities involve cultivating and managing relationships with clients. Throughout the past three years, he has orchestrated significant deals, including a $21 million sale in Chino and a $20 million, 225,000 square feet lease in Fontana. Amid the challenges posed by the pandemic, Eddy exhibited resilience and has doubled his output since the pre-COVID-19 era. He is CCIM accredited and is a member of SIOR. For aspiring CRE professionals, Eddy emphasizes the importance of relentless dedication to relationship-building and especially recognizing that clients who are business owners appreciate and seek partnerships with individuals who demonstrate a strong work ethic. “By consistently prioritizing the interests of clients over personal gain, anyone can cultivate a thriving business built on mutual trust within the industry,” he says.
Matthew Eddy
Josh Eames started in the real estate industry doing small- scale community development projects, including parks, bus stops and new sidewalks. Seeing the impact those projects had on improving people’s lives, Eames developed a passion for commercial real estate, which leveraged his experience in structural design. Since then, he has earned a rapid ascent in the industry more than 14 years due to strong leadership skills and a deep understanding of the multifamily market. Eames spent his early career at Toll Brothers Apartment Living, where he climbed the ranks from assistant project manager to director of development. Today he is president of Presidium, overseeing the strategic direction and execution of the company’s multifamily development projects across the nation, including identifying and evaluating potential development sites, conducting feasibility studies and securing approvals. Eames oversaw the development of 8,400 multifamily units nationwide, including notable projects like Presidium Frisco Square, and last year he secured site plan approvals for significant developments such as the Cotton Mill Redevelopment in McKinney and the Smithfield Redevelopment in North Richland Hills. His approach to leadership is characterized by authenticity, honesty, integrity and reliability. He honed those leadership skills while playing football at Vanderbilt University. His advice to those entering the industry is to get as much exposure to as many facets of development as they can as early as they can. “Keep in mind that you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time,” he says. “Try to focus on what is in front of you and the bigger picture will start to take shape.”
Josh Eames
Described as a detail-oriented, diligent leader with an excellent work ethic, Matt Duplantis is committed to keeping up with market trends and building strong relationships with brokers, his team and project stakeholders. He is an SVP and market officer in the west region at Link Logistics, where he oversees leasing, property management and construction for a 28-million-square-foot portfolio with 396 customers across Arizona and Nevada. Under his leadership, Link Logistics achieved a regional milestone when the firm broke ground on its first Las Vegas development, a property that was fully leased before completion. The firm’s presence in Las Vegas now spans nearly 10 million square feet and more than 50 properties. Duplantis is active in several industry organizations, including serving as a board member of the NAIOP Northern Nevada Development Council, and he is a member of both the Arizona chapter of NAIOP and SIOR Southern Nevada chapter. A family friend connected Duplantis with his first commercial real estate role as a project director at Trainor and Associates, an in-house property management and brokerage listing agency. He enjoyed the relationship-centric aspects of commercial real estate, the role of strategy in finding success, and the competition and constant learning that are fundamental to working in the industry. He held positions at GLP and Dermody Properties prior to transitioning to Link Logistics. He advises that it takes time and effort to build the professional skills needed to thrive in industrial real estate as well as learn the intricacies and functions of one’s market. He emphasizes the importance of deeply knowing one’s competitors, properties and lease comps to understand key advantages and inform strategy. Above all, Duplantis believes relationships are fundamental to success in the industry.
Matt Duplantis
A 14-year veteran of the industry, Sean Durkin is somebody who gets involved and is recognized as a go-getter and dealmaker. He has been active in NAIOP, including chairing three committees, and he mentors individuals new to the industry. He also remains involved in his University of Washington Real Estate program as an alumni committee member and as a mentor. Durkin is a principal at Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services, where he is involved in the operation of the company, setting strategy, recruiting and co-managing the firm’s finances. He also hosts its bi-weekly newer broker educational class, Lee University. Durkin serves a unique smaller tenant product type with big results. He represents 2.5 million square feet of industrial and office product for lease and more than $30 million in syndicated portfolio value in conjunction with one other partner. He is credited with helping grow the firm from 15 to 47 brokers through outreach and recruiting discussions. Durkin consistently places in the top five performers at Lee, with his best years in 2021 and 2022, and he placed first in the largest SIOR member industrial sale in the country in 2021 at $163 million. Durkin started in the industry at age 15, when he invested $1,500 in a commercial asset where he worked as a laborer. He continues to hold that asset today. Prior to joining Lee, he held positions at four different brokerage firms and specialized in a diversity of product types. He advises young brokers to find a leader in the industry as a mentor. “You can learn from their mistakes and develop yourself as a leader in the industry much more quickly and thoroughly with an attentive mentor or team leader.”
Sean Durkin
Kevin Dudley recently became one of the youngest vice chairmen at CBRE after starting as an intern and rising through the ranks throughout the past 14 years. Dudley leads a team of seven professionals focused on all aspects of the industrial and logistics business, developing and implementing corporate real estate strategies for institutional owners and tenants. The team also produces national and local data analytics and has completed transactions in 30 states during the past few years. Dudley has arranged millions of square feet of large deals on behalf of owners. He was named to the 2023 and 2021 Colbert Coldwell Circle for CBRE’s National top 3% producers, topping more than $6.3 billion in transactions since 2020, and was recognized with his team for three deal-of-the-year awards in 2020, 2019 and 2016 by the New Jersey Chapter of NAIOP. He is the co-chair of the CBRE Tri-State Black Excellence Group, a member of the CBRE Global Supply Chain Practice and CBRE Ports and Integrated Logistics group and an active member of SIOR. In addition to his work at CBRE, Dudley serves as a board member of the Children’s Museum of the East End and the William Paterson Cotsakos College of Business Advisory Council. He tells young industry entrants: “This is a business where you can outwork people. Yes, working smart is A key, but working diligently and with purpose is THE key.”
Kevin L. Dudley
Jerry Doty has risen quickly to a leadership role in Colliers’ US industrial division. He entered the market in 2012 at the Las Vegas-based Doherty Industrial Group and worked to develop expertise and strategic leadership skills while spearheading tenant representation and investment sales services for the group. Today, he is an EVP specializing in the sale and leasing of industrial properties throughout Southern Nevada, with clients including Prologis, LINK, Panattoni Development Co., Matter Real Estate, Juliet Properties, Niagara Water, City National Bank, Jenni Kayne and Kate Spade. His transaction volume reached regional records of more than $1.6 billion in 2022 and 2023, when he negotiated a one-million-square-foot industrial lease, providing the first distribution center of that size in Las Vegas. He was named a Colliers Everest Award winner in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Colleagues say he is curious and driven to succeed. He is a designee of SIOR and is an active member of the Southern Nevada chapter of NAIOP. In addition, he supports the Links for Life Foundation, a charity that provides medical services and monetary contributions to underprivileged children in Southern Nevada. Doty got his start in the industry following in the footsteps of his uncle, Dan Doherty, who had been in the industry for more than 20 years and offered Doty an opportunity to join his team. His advice to others in the industry is to humble yourself and admit when you don’t know what you’re doing. “Most people will be generous with their time and are willing to share their knowledge with you so long as you continue to learn and always keep asking questions.”
Jerry Doty
ZRS Management associate VP Chris Domino has implemented sophisticated data analysis that allows the firm to operate its properties cost-efficiently. His expertise has been a driving force in the company’s continued growth and success as one of the nation’s largest third-party property management companies. Domino helps operate the company’s central region, overseeing the day-to-day operations of 25,000 units at 82 properties, which represents one-third of ZRS’ total clients. He has automated many of the company’s reports and has learned the metrics that his property managers need to focus on to achieve business goals. ZRS SVP Luanne McNulty, who leads operations in Texas and Arizona, says Domino made an immediate impact when he arrived at ZRS. “Chris is one of those rare individuals who is a great leader, trainer and very strong operationally,” McNulty says. Domino got into working in commercial real estate because of his experience while living at a ZRS-managed property. He started as an entry-level lease consultant and then became a regional property manager before joining the firm’s marketing team, where his passion for analytics grew. Domino launched ZRS’s centralized services platform which frees up time for onsite teams to provide a higher touch experience for prospects and residents visiting the physical leasing office. His advice for anyone coming into the industry at any role would be to regularly spend time onsite learning the day-to-day operations and understanding the resident experience. In his experience, the biggest driver in improving NOI is always tied to on-the-ground operations, he says.
Chris Domino
Valley National Bank first VP Travis Della Volpe leads the company’s commercial banking team and handles some of its larger and more complicated relationships. With a strong work ethic and a sense of dedication, he excels at developing the best solutions for clients. Volpe has 11 years of experience in the industry, including three years in his current role. In addition to managing a large portfolio, he leads a team of four lenders and administrators and is responsible for new business generation. He also oversees his team members’ portfolios and assists them with career development. Valley Bank recognized Volpe’s achievements with its Leader in Action award in 2018 and leadership certificate in 2021. He has mentored interns for six years and was selected to participate in Valley Bank’s Project Lift, a nine-month project to improve process efficiency. Colleagues say he is mature for his age, is even-keeled particularly during current market volatility and demonstrates professionalism. With a persistent interest in financial services, Volpe graduated with a concentration in finance and marketing but gravitated toward the commercial real estate industry. Upon completion of the underwriter trainee program, he spent more than a year as a credit underwriter before being promoted to relationship manager, and now a first VP/team leader for New Jersey. His advice to industry newcomers is to work hard, be professional at all times, and absorb information from peers and those more experienced whenever possible.
Travis Della Volpe
Michael DeGiorgio has made a significant impact on the commercial real estate industry via Crexi, the technology platform he founded with three others in 2015. Crexi is designed to make the CRE industry more accessible while making business easier for the firm’s customers. DeGiorgio got the idea for Crexi when he was working in the CRE space and realized there wasn’t a single, effective industry solution for listing properties, researching markets, finding sales comps, connecting with key stakeholders and leasing space. He met with a mentor and explained his idea for an online CRE marketplace. The idea grew from there. The team solicited feedback from the CRE community to ensure the product was needed, and DeGeorgio spent significant time articulating his vision of the company to the outside investment community and hiring top talent while ensuring the firm was focused on its core product. Under DeGeorgio’s leadership, Crexi hosted the world’s largest single-asset online real estate transaction, expanded its presence with offices in Irvine and Miami in addition to its Los Angeles headquarters, facilitated more than $615 billion in transactions, and empowers 2.5 million buyers, brokers and tenants to explore more than $7 trillion in property value across the country. In addition, DeGeorgio led the Crexi team through the uncertainty of COVID-19 and continues to lead the company to growth. His advice to those new to the industry is that challenges build strength.
Michael DeGiorgio
Paige Decker’s journey into commercial real estate was an unexpected shift spurred by the challenges of the COVID-19 aftermath while working in HR for the oil and gas sector. Fueled by curiosity, she explored various industries and discovered a passion for real estate, particularly in the multifamily sector. She landed at JPI, where she is VP of people operations, overseeing the lifecycle of the associate journey from workforce planning to onboarding, management of payroll and benefits, and fostering career advancement opportunities through coaching. She is committed to continuous learning and professional development, and she completed the CoachU coaching program to enhance her skills and foster a coaching-oriented leadership style. Decker also participated in the six-month Leading-Edge Fort Worth program that provides emerging leaders with opportunities to strengthen their leadership practices. At JPI, she employs a people-first philosophy that has led her to establish learning tools and programs for associates designed to help them grow within the organization. She also contributes to the development and implementation of companywide initiatives aimed at enhancing employee satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. Among her accomplishments are bringing all HR functions in-house, implementing an HRIS system, streamlining processes and spearheading the development of People Analytics to enhance workforce effectiveness through data-driven insights. For those entering the commercial real estate field, Decker underscores the importance of adopting a mindset of perpetual learning, staying current on industry trends and being open to change.
Paige B. Decker
Balbec Capital LP hired Marcello Cricco-Lizza in 2020 to build out its commercial mortgage platform. Cricco-Lizza focuses on less-trafficked opportunities overlooked by larger investors and uses a funnel approach to identify the most attractive risk-adjusted loan opportunities for Balbec Funds. As the company’s commercial mortgage portfolio manager, he oversees Balbec’s CRE mortgage investment sourcing, execution, capital markets and asset management. Since joining the firm, Cricco-Lizza has spearheaded several hundred million dollars of commercial mortgage investment for Balbec’s funds. His accomplishments include building the firm’s bridge/transitional lending platform as well as closing multiple financings to provide back-leverage on the portfolio. Cricco-Lizza got his start in the industry after seeking out a role in the mortgage business in 2010, where he saw plenty of opportunity. He worked as a trader at the CMBS trading desk at Goldman Sachs for seven years, overseeing all of the derivatives related to CMBS and CRE as well as CRE secondary loan trading. He advises those entering the industry not to be an island and to focus on relationship building, as strong relationships built on trust and sharing market information are necessary for certainty of execution, deal sourcing and financing. Similarly, he advises newcomers to build relationships with the people on the ground doing local leasing, as they will always know that market better than someone who is 1,000 miles away underwriting on a desktop.
Marcello Cricco-Lizza
Capstone Cos. partner and managing director Ron Corrao is the production lead for the firm’s Carolinas and Virginia regions, where he oversees a team of six brokers. He has been involved in $2 billion worth of multifamily and land sales across the Carolinas and Virginia during the past three years. Historically, Carrao has focused on naturally affordable properties for underserved communities. During recent market turbulence, he has positioned the firm’s Carolina office with stability for the future. Corrao also serves as a leader among Capstone’s other offices across the nation. His wealth of knowledge and experience in the industry allows him to give guidance cross-collaboratively throughout the firm and he fosters the growth of his team by actively mentoring and guiding young members. Carrao entered commercial real estate driven by a passion for deal-making and problem-solving, and his satisfaction comes from helping clients achieve their goals. Despite the industry’s ups and downs, Carrao finds it rewarding to celebrate successful transactions for everyone involved. His advice to newcomers in the industry is to recognize the job’s 24/7 nature. Success involves continuous client service, he says.
Ron Corrao
M&T Realty Capital Corp. SVP Alex Capozza has unmistakable leadership abilities, deep industry knowledge and expertise in agency products. He is the team lead for the firm’s strategic alliance with Marcus & Millichap, where he is responsible for all deal flow for the M&T RCC/MMCC strategic relationship that began in 2021. Capozza began as the sole production analyst on the strategic alliance team, and with increasing deal volume to more than $2.5 billion in loans, he transitioned into a leadership role where he manages three production analysts who work closely with underwriting, capital markets and closing teams. He serves as the point of contact for all new strategic alliance agency lending opportunities and communicates deal terms, feasibility, and other key information directly to the MMCC team. Capazzo also maintains strong relationships with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, allowing for open communication and a smooth transaction process. Beyond leading his team, Capazzo handles more loan volume than anyone else at M&T RCC, more than $1.3 billion in 2023. Capazzo oversees employees participating in the M&T RCC Next Generation program, a 12-month rotational experience for rising talent that provides exposure to the full lifecycle of a loan. He was instrumental in developing the framework for the program and serves as both a manager and a coach for rising talent. His advice for early career professionals is to be confident, prioritize relationship-building and produce high-quality work that can be trusted.
Alex Capozza
Grant Brutten spent many years working for construction firms, starting as an intern and rising to the roles of project engineer and project manager. This experience built a foundation of understanding about how buildings are constructed and taught him valuable skills around organization, structure and hard work. He joined Brixton Capital, working in its property management, leasing and development departments fulfilling construction-related needs. In this role, Brutten participated on a team implementing value-add strategies for shopping center investments. In one instance, he identified an unconventional use for additional space that was freed up in a $25 million mall redevelopment by positioning the space for self-storage and recruiting an operator to build the facility. As a project manager, he ran TI projects for in-line tenants, oversaw certain aspects of the design permitting process and conducted utility studies as the firm phased construction and repositioned a former mall into a grocery-anchored center. Brutten now leverages his diverse experience while working as an associate on Brixton’s capital markets team responsible for raising equity for multifamily and retail property acquisitions in the Western US and Texas. Brutten has focused extensively on identifying and forging relationships with family offices as a strategic move to offset traditional equity and lending sources that were pulling back under the cloud of rising interest rates. In addition, to better capitalize the firm to support its property acquisitions, he developed a strategy that included producing thought-leadership articles and engaging with potential investors through an email campaign. He developed initiatives, put a new CRM in place and managed the database. Brutten’s diverse CRE career taught him to maintain an insatiable curiosity, and he recommends this to others. “Always ask questions, and don’t be afraid to do so,” he says. “With so many facets of the industry to choose from, there’s always something to learn.”
Grant Brutten
Jason Brooks is a shareholder in Buchalter PC’s Orange County office and a member of its real estate practice group. His legal practice focuses on representing property owners and developers throughout the US on projects ranging from ground-up development and acquisition rehab to buy-and-hold and repositioning of assets. Projects include two units to 400 units for sale and for rent multifamily, spec homes ranging in price from $500,000 to more than $100 million, hotels up to 350 keys and an assortment of commercial properties from senior living and retail to industrial and office. Brooks has a unique understanding of what his clients are experiencing. Prior to practicing real estate full-time, he worked on the business side of companies and real estate funds running acquisitions and operations. Formerly, he worked for assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division Makan Delrahim creating business, legal and governmental strategies for Fortune 500 companies and major mergers and acquisitions transactions. Subsequently, he served as chief of staff and director of operations for Lincoln Avenue Capital. Brooks has grown his team at Buchalter to five attorneys in the past four years and together they have handled more than $7 billion in CRE acquisitions, sales and financing. Brooks is the fourth generation in his family to work in the real estate business. His family has been in the lending, title, escrow and 1031 exchange business. Brooks leverages the knowledge he gleaned from the previous three generations to provide clients with a unique perspective and level of representation. His advice to those wanting to get into commercial real estate is to take advantage of the best opportunities even if you don’t get paid or make a lot because the experience is invaluable.
Jason Brooks
Growing up in the Washington D.C. area, Kemena Brooks saw firsthand how disinvestment in neighborhoods can negatively impact people, especially youth. She worked for the Charlotte Housing Authority immediately after graduate school, where she learned about the transformative development of public housing, and she now leads large, transformative real estate development with a commitment to creating stronger neighborhoods. She joined The Community Builders in 2018 to lead Oakwood Shores, one of TCB’s most important efforts encompassing the redevelopment of more than 100 acres in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Due to her talent and work ethic, Brooks was promoted to director of development at TCB where she now leads other transformative work, including Sankofa Village Wellness Center, which is addressing West Garfield Park’s life expectancy concerns in Chicago’s Near Northside. The 50,000-square-foot center is being developed in coordination with health and community organizations to provide services designed to improve physical and mental health. Brooks also is leading a transit-oriented development at Southbridge, a 900-unit multi-phase, mixed-use development effort, as well as Assemble Chicago, a mixed-use high-rise in the Chicago Loop designed by Studio Gang. She is a committed mentor and is a strong advocate for women and people of color working in real estate. Brooks maintains a commitment to civic leadership, including as a Baumhart Scholar at Loyola University Chicago, her role on the board of the Chicago Loop Alliance, and her volunteer positions at ULI. In 2022, Brooks was selected by ULI Chicago as a Women Leadership Initiative Fellowship, which provided her the opportunity to guest on a ULI National Product Council where she was then invited to become a permanent member. Her advice to those entering the industry is to build meaningful relationships and value them, be eager to learn and be willing to do.
Kemena Brooks
Walker & Dunlop managing director of capital markets Nicole Brickhouse is responsible for sourcing equity and debt financing solutions for CRE developers and owners throughout the US. Bringing more than a decade of experience to the company, Brickhouse has expertise with all asset classes, including multifamily, retail, office, industrial and data centers. She has orchestrated more than $5 billion in loans and facilitated more than 300 deals. Her ability to navigate complex transactions and deliver results speaks to her skill as a leader and strategist in the field, and her leadership qualities extend beyond her professional accomplishments. She is known for her mentorship and professionalism both at Walker & Dunlop and across the industry. As the incoming president of the DC Real Estate Group and an active participant in CREW and ULI, she helps shape the discourse and drive innovation within the real estate community. At ULI, she sits on the Washington commercial office council, which has a mission of shaping the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide. Before joining Walker & Dunlop, Brickhouse was a director at HFF and held project management roles on the sustainability team at Cassidy Turley. She encourages new real estate professionals to embrace every experience as an opportunity for growth. “Approaching each interaction with curiosity and enthusiasm allows individuals to learn from both successes and setbacks, fostering personal and professional development,” she says. “It’s crucial to remain adaptable and open-minded in the face of change, as the real estate landscape is constantly evolving.”
Nicole Brickhouse
Martin Bravo believes each neighborhood should have a unique identity that adds to the fabric of the overall city. From a young age, Bravo was fascinated by the mechanics and social complexities of how urban centers change and evolve. Born and raised in Colombia, Bravo got his start in real estate in 2010 as an intern at Metro 1, a commercial brokerage and development company based in Miami, where he developed a deep understanding of the importance of collaboration that each stakeholder in a neighborhood plays in shaping the long-term vision of a community. His goal is to market to end users rather than other brokers, and in some cases he has lived in the buildings he markets. Bravo is a partner and COO at Miami-based commercial brokerage APEX Capital Realty. He joined the firm in 2019 and played a key role in scaling the company from eight full-time professionals to 40 and annual sales volume of more than $350 million. During the past three years, Bravo also played a vital role in closing 52 transactions individually totaling $80 million. Bravo is responsible for the internal innovation of systems and processes, overseeing the company’s creative direction, and educating its sales professionals. He was a founding member of Florida International University’s Real Estate Council, serving as an advisor for the graduate school of real estate. In addition, Bravo volunteered for Friends of the Underline, where he mentored students and helped them secure positions in leading local firms.
Martin Bravo
With a background in engineering and a longtime interest in architecture and renewable energy, Diane Borys uses her expertise to design lighting that transforms spaces into immersive experiences that captivate and inspire. She is the founding principal and architectural lighting designer at Noctiluca Lighting, which celebrates its 5th birthday this year. Her projects include corporate office tenant improvements, life science, bars and restaurants, hotels, multifamily mixed-use, sacred venues and higher education. Borys’ diverse portfolio of projects includes high-profile ventures like the LAX Terminal three Food Hall and multiple Apple offices as well as the renovation of UC San Diego’s iconic Geisel Library. She is described as having an unwavering passion, visionary thinking, problem-solving skills, an aptitude for connecting and networking and a relentless commitment to excellence and hard work. Borys opened the firm shortly before the start of the pandemic and has grown her team, creating a successful business that has won numerous project awards and achieved multiple women-owned and small business certifications. Beyond her professional achievements, she devotes time to the enrichment of the industry through active contributions to committees within CREW San Diego, Women in Lighting Design San Diego, and the San Diego Architectural Foundation’s Built Environment Education program and volunteering at her two kids’ school STREAM program and classrooms. Her advice for newcomers emphasizes the importance of networking, continuous learning and authenticity. “By seizing opportunities to build relationships, contribute to industry organizations, and stay true to one’s passion and purpose, aspiring professionals can carve their path in commercial real estate and make a meaningful impact.” And, if they find that they don’t yet have a seat at the table, she encourages them to not be afraid to build their own chair.
Diane Borys
Wanting to experience life outside his hometown, Josh Bishop eagerly accepted an invitation from his California-based cousin to visit and meet some of his contacts in the CRE world. One of the people Bishop met was Kyle Matthews, an encounter that convinced him to move across the country and pursue a career in real estate. Today, Bishop is an SVP and senior director at Matthews Real Estate Investment Services in its net lease retail division. He closes more than 100 deals each year and ranks among the top agents nationwide, both at Matthews and in the broader industry, with total career sales volume of more than $1 billion. Much of this success is a result of his specialty within the dollar store market, where his expertise in the disposition and acquisition of discount businesses across the country provides him with insight into consumer spending habits and industry trends. In addition to managing his current transactions, securing deals, meeting with clients and locating unique opportunities, Bishop also is heavily involved with helping Matthews expand in the single-tenant net lease sector. He mentors dozens of new agents, assisting them on challenging deals and helping them build market expertise and sales skills. During recent challenges and disruptions in the market, Bishop found a niche that was recession-resistant, kept his head down and pushed through. Instead of looking at this time as a negative, he says he chose to look at it as an opportunity. Bishop continued to execute at the highest level, closing 89 transactions totaling more than $149 million in sales volume. His advice for new agents is to put in the work that others may not be willing to do. “If you outwork the competition and listen to your mentors, it’s a recipe for success,” he says. “New agents need to have passion for this career and show it through dedication to themselves and their clients.”
Josh Bishop
Loeb & Loeb partner Peter Bergan, a 15-year veteran of the industry, has developed unique expertise in data center and digital infrastructure transactions, including hyperscale, enterprise and colocation data centers. Trusted for his ability to manage and negotiate specific special service requirements for data center lease considerations, Bergan understands deal particulars that extend beyond physical space requirements. He led Vantage Data Centers in its partnership agreement with Colony Capital Inc., a global investment management firm, valued at $3.5 billion to help expand Vantage’s wholesale data centers across North America and Europe, at the height of the pandemic in July 2020. Bergan’s approach to business is influenced by his passion for rugby. He was a member of the rugby team at The Ohio State University and continued his rugby career throughout law school. He has a special appreciation for teamwork both on and off the field, and he applies that same set of skills when managing and negotiating big deals with parties from corporate and technical worlds that come together for data centers. Bergan’s career path took a turn after graduating from law school in 2009. He planned to work in M&A law but market conditions necessitated that he work on commercial real estate foreclosures and bankruptcies, including working on the liquidation of assets for Hostess in 2011. He managed the sale of Hostess’ last 150 stores to a single buyer and was awarded a unique trophy in the form of a Twinkies box to commemorate the accomplishment. Outside of the office, Bergan is active in his community, serving as a board member of Rugby Ohio and Recovery Resources, an organization dedicated to assisting those struggling with mental health and addiction issues. He is also a member of ULI and ICSC.
Peter Bergan
Ben Barr began his real estate career as a management consultant at Ernst & Young advising corporate clients on best practices and strategies for their real estate holdings. He then moved to Woodside Health as its VP of asset management in 2019 and was promoted to partner and principal in 2020 after demonstrating leadership and an astute knack for creating value. He has helped the firm grow, building the team to five individuals and helping the portfolio grow from $300 million to as high as $700 million. Barr developed and implemented a full suite of asset management functions and built processes for all value-driving activities from property management, leasing, portfolio analytics, dispositions and investor relations. These processes established Woodside Health as a leader in the healthcare real estate space and an institutional quality partner. He also recognized the medical real estate industry was becoming increasingly competitive as it garnered growing attention from the largest institutional investors and understood to stay competitive in the industry it was necessary to secure this source of capital. Shortly after his elevation to principal, he led the process of securing Woodside Health’s first institutional joint-venture. In addition, Barr saw a market opportunity as real estate prices rapidly rose between 2020 and 2022 and led the disposition of more than $330 million in sales during the period. His advice for aspiring professionals is to learn the fundamentals, embrace mentorship, network with purpose, stay curious and be resilient. “Deals fall through, markets fluctuate. Persevere, adapt, and learn from setbacks.”
Ben Barr
During more than a decade at Marcus & Millichap Capital Corp., SVP Ron Balys has emerged as a market leader and built a reputation around his unwavering sense of integrity and the client relationships he values above all else. Balys collaborates with other brokers to obtain the most competitive terms for clients and has built close relationships with a variety of individual capital sources. He is responsible for placing permanent and bridge debt for all asset classes primarily in California but stretching nationwide when his clients enter 1031 exchanges. His responsibilities extend beyond simply signing and closing deals; he takes each deal on an individual basis, understands what the client’s goals are and finds up to 10 lenders with options that best fit the scenario. As one of MMCC’s top originators, Balys has closed nearly 330 transactions, totaling $1 billion in volume in the past three years, finishing in the top 10 nationwide within MMCC. His most notable transaction was a $38 million multitenant retail center in Santa Ana, CA, in which his team locked in a rate of 4.98% with no prepayment penalty and a 30-year amortization. During the height of banks failing, lenders blowing out of rate locks and stepping back from lending, Balys and his team held all terms as promised. Colleagues describe him as sophisticated and kind, a willing teacher to newer originators and someone who demonstrates daily what a good mindset and good work ethic can achieve. His advice to anyone entering the industry is to be honest, hard-working and responsive. “It’s easy to get discouraged when a deal falls apart or when bad news is delivered, but every move and every response is noted, and how a person handles and overcomes those tough situations is how they are seen and labeled within the industry.”
Ron Balys
CBRE vice chairman and managing director Danny Baker has been involved in more than $30 billion in multifamily investment transactions since 2012 and has led the firm’s Dallas-Fort Worth team since 2019. Under his leadership, the team has led market share in DFW multifamily investment sales, and since January 2021, they have closed 218 transactions valued at more than $10 billion and encompassing more than 57,000 units. In 2022, his team closed the sale of Obsidian Portfolio, an eight-property, 2,766-unit multifamily portfolio across DFW, a unique sale given the size of the portfolio, the timing of the sale and the buyer selection process. Baker got his start in real estate amid the Great Recession in 2009. After graduating from the University of Arizona, he strategically focused his job search on the DFW area and cold-called CBRE CFO Bob Sulentic, now CEO of the firm. He bought a one-way ticket for an interview with a CBRE recruiter and was hired despite a companywide hiring freeze. He began his career as a research coordinator at CBRE and became a vice chairman in only 11 years. He leads a team of 13 in the DFW market and more than 100 across the central US. As a leader, Baker has built a foundation of trust for his team, believing positive business results happen when people work in a positive environment. His advice to young aspiring commercial real estate professionals is to find what motivates them beyond compensation. “Strive to be exceptional and surround yourself with people who are better than you,” says Baker. “Focusing on compensation will take your focus off of your teammates, clients, and professional development.”
Danny Baker
Drew Aspinwall’s CRE journey began in childhood as he accompanied his father, an office broker in Atlanta, to work, and an early fascination with people’s choices about where they live steered him toward a dedicated focus on multifamily real estate. In college, he interned with the investment team at Carroll Organization. Today, he is VP of acquisitions at Passco Cos., where he sources new opportunities, contributes to the firm’s acquisition strategy, evaluates target markets, and fosters and maintains relationships within the multifamily transaction community. He is known as someone who refuses to accept the status quo, challenges complacency and embraces innovative solutions. During his first year with the firm, he helped it reach $700 million in acquisitions, nearly double what it recorded in 2019. Under Aspinwall’s strategic guidance, the firm’s total properties acquired increased by 40% compared to the pre-2021 landscape, and he played a pivotal role in not only identifying but also closing groundbreaking deals, including the company’s new initiative to execute loan assumption opportunities. Colleagues say Apsinwall relentlessly pursues excellence and is known for having an exceptional work ethic. He also is known as a masterful networker who uses the relationships he cultivates to achieve success in developing business and solving complex problems. For aspiring professionals, Aspinwall emphasizes the significance of networking and advocating for connections beyond immediate circles. He highlights the industry’s willingness to offer guidance and support and says ambition and a genuine desire to contribute are key traits for success.
Drew Aspinwall
Adler & Stachenfeld Partner Danielle Ash is described as a trendsetting attorney who has been instrumental in building two practices at the firm: the ground lease practice, which is one of the fastest growing practices at A&S, and a practice focused on impact-related real estate development work. As co-chair of the ground lease practice, Ash specializes in complex sale-leasebacks and ground lease financing structures, often involving multistakeholder negotiations and phased development projects. She also has expertise in joint-ventures, construction and permanent financing, and complex fund formations, and she regularly represents institutional landlords, tenants, borrowers, lenders, sponsors, institutional investors and developers. Recently, Ash advised on a landmark $400 million deal where the ground lease REIT acquired portions of the building comprising the iconic Hudson Hotel in New York and simultaneously entered a 99-year ground lease with a developer, which plans to redevelop the hotel into multifamily housing. The deal was complex because it required the assignment of an existing complex purchase and sale agreement in addition to the ground lease, the building is a condominium with owners including a longstanding New York City real estate family, and the closing involved significant arrangements with the hotel union. Despite all of these challenges, the deal was completed on the scheduled closing date. Ash has been committed to building an empowering culture at A&S that celebrates employees’ success and hard work, including helping lay the groundwork for how the firm should compensate associates when they bring in outside business. Her advice to young lawyers is to believe in what they are doing. “Get involved in things you are passionate about, connect with colleagues, clients and people you’re across the table from, take lunch with someone you don’t know, and put pressure on your workplace to support the growth of your career, in whatever direction it is headed.”
Danielle Ash
An open-minded approach and a willingness to take the lead on new initiatives has guided Ryan Ambs throughout his 17-year career. He started with Harbor Group International LLC out of college in 2007 as an analyst in its Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters just as the Great Recession was taking hold. He then pivoted away from transactions to asset management, where he worked for the president of HGI’s property management company, which marked the beginning of his “try everything” approach. He relocated to New York and later Los Angeles. In both places, he helped grow new offices and business, and he has made an effort to work on diverse property types, including multifamily, retail, office and alternative assets. He briefly left HGI to lead the asset management division for a Las Vegas-based developer but returned to HGI in late 2023 as VP of asset management where his focus has been on stabilizing the firm’s West Coast portfolio. Since he rejoined the company, occupancy has rebounded from 89.5% to 91.5% and total income has increased 3.6%. His diverse knowledge base allows him to view properties from a variety of perspectives and communicate effectively with stakeholders ranging from lenders and investors to managers, maintenance staff and construction teams. Ambs’ familiarity with the real estate industry extends back to his childhood when he visited properties and saw the behind-the-scenes operation of the hotel business with his father. He encourages people new to the industry to ask to do different things and learn as much as they can. “If you feel you’ve plateaued on your learning, move somewhere where you can continue to learn. If necessary, go work somewhere else in order to continue that growth.”
Ryan J. Ambs
While studying law at Harvard, Matthew Aldana enrolled in a real estate transactions course taught by Jonathan Mechanic, partner and chairman of Fried Frank’s real estate department. Although he joined another firm’s corporate group after graduating, he remained fascinated with the CRE world. He decided to pivot to the real estate industry, where he now regularly works alongside Mechanic on the same types of high-profile transactions that piqued his interest many years ago. Today he is a partner with Fried Frank and has his fingerprints on some of the most prominent CRE projects in New York City. He served as counsel to GFP Real Estate and Metro Loft Management in a joint-venture with Rockwood Capital in connection with the financing and redevelopment of 25 Water Street in New York, one of the largest office-to-residential conversions in US history. He also served as counsel for RXR Realty in its joint-venture with TF Cornerstone for their planned development of a 1,575-foot-tall mixed-use tower of 2.5 million square feet at the site of the current Grand Hyatt New York, adjacent to Grand Central Station. His practice also advises on complex corporate real estate transactions including joint-ventures, platform formations, mergers, acquisitions and dispositions of interests in private real estate companies, portfolio transactions, preferred equity investments and other transactions relating to the real estate industry. In addition to his practice, he has been a mentor to both associates and summer associates.
Matthew Aldana
Universe Holdings acquisition associate Noah Kaufman has helped the company significantly add to its assets under management during the past three years. As the head of its acquisition department, Kaufman is the point of contact for dealings with investment sales brokers, mortgage brokers and property owners on both listed and off-market multifamily properties. Kaufman grew up in a real estate family. His grandmother was a residential sales broker and he loved hearing how she helped buyers and sellers come together on a transactional basis. His stepfather was a real estate transaction attorney, and he and Kaufman had weekly conversations about complex transactions that ultimately prompted Kaufman to pursue a career in commercial real estate. Throughout his career, Kaufman has been involved in different parts of real estate, which has allowed him to develop a broad view of the industry. In addition to acquisitions, Kaufman’s responsibilities at Universe Holdings include overseeing the firm’s debt portfolio and he is involved with refinance and disposition transactions. He also assists in investor relations and builds relationships with new equity providers such as institutional equity and family offices. During the past 24 months, Kaufman has been key to adding $250 million in assets to the firm’s portfolio, including its first acquisition in Florida. He thinks outside the box, including adding an asset management CRM and onboarding an artificial intelligence tool that assists with tenant prospecting. His advice to those entering the business is to find what you are passionate about and seek out a role that will combine your passion with an opportunity to make an impact at both your firm and the communities you are serving.
Noah Kaufman
Doug Jones chose a career in the commercial real estate industry after attending West Point and serving as an Army Ranger for seven years. While deployed to Afghanistan in 2011, Jones was recognized for valor in combat and is also a Purple Heart recipient. His desire for entrepreneurship and a meaningful impact on communities and work environments drew him to commercial real estate following his service. With no ties to the CRE industry, Jones began his career in 2015 and quickly established himself as a leasing broker for several institutional clients and then as the youngest managing principal for Cushman & Wakefield’s Texas operations. He was responsible for more than 500 professionals and more than $200 million of annual revenue across the firm’s internal operations and client-facing engagements, fostering collaboration across regional service lines, and he increased the total revenue of the Dallas market by 62% in just three years. In addition, Jones served as the executive director of military and veteran programs, where he built an industry-leading team of professionals focused on harnessing the power of transitioning military talent into the workforce through DoD Skillbridge legislation and other hiring agencies. Today at Stream Realty Partners, Jones is managing director of Texas office services, where he develops and implements growth strategies, fosters client relationships and enhances the overall performance of the office services sector. Stream’s Texas office business includes 200 team members, 22 strategic clients and a portfolio of more than 47 million square feet. His advice for those aspiring to enter the CRE field is don’t quit. “Stay with it, network and bring your best self,” says Jones. “Your opportunity will come, and then take advantage of it.”
Doug Jones
Allison Johnston Frizzo was a natural in the CRE space before she even started kindergarten. At four years old, Johnston Frizzo accompanied her mother, who worked in CRE leasing, on an office tour where she took the prospective tenant by the hand and walked him room-by-room through the space. She got her start in CRE as a leasing associate with Spire Realty, where she assisted with the leasing of more than three million square feet of class A office projects. She then joined JLL as a VP where she leased one of the largest buildings in JLL’s portfolio. Later, she became VP of Gaedeke Group, leasing more than 1.8 million square feet of class A office projects. After more than a decade in leadership roles at brokerage firms in Dallas, Johnston Frizzo launched Hart Commercial with her long-time mentor, Tanya Hart Little, in October 2021. As managing partner of the firm Johnston Frizzo specializes in office leasing and has experience in business development, construction management and design. Johnston Frizzo significantly impacted the CRE industry early in her career when she founded Ladies in CRE after realizing there were no local real estate industry organizations providing networking opportunities for young professional women in their 20s and 30s. Launching with 35 members, the nonprofit has grown to more than 800 members, providing networking as well as philanthropic opportunities. Since mentors have played a significant role in her career, Johnston Frizzo’s advice for those entering the industry is to grow a network of successful, senior CRE professionals by participating in mentor programs. “Seeking mentors is like looking for a job because one needs to apply the same time and energy to find the right fit,” she says. “The benefit from their guidance through their experience is well worth the investment.”
Allison Johnston Frizzo
When Adam Johnson joined NAI Hiffman in 2008, he found himself without a mentor only six weeks into the job. Undaunted, he struck up conversations with other brokers and often used lunch meetings to build relationships. Years later, when he earned shareholder status within the firm, he could point to the roster of 42 Hiffman brokers and confirm his active involvement in deals with 41 of them. Today, Johnson is EVP of Hiffman’s office capital markets group, where he is a top-performing broker specializing in office investment sales. He assists owners, users and banks in purchasing and selling office and flex/industrial space throughout the Chicago suburbs. He excels at turning around distressed assets and maximizing value, helping his clients navigate an uncertain office market. Johnson began his career in leasing, a background that brings a unique perspective to underwriting, trends, space utilization and how those elements affect an asset’s value. Johnson regularly participates as an expert on industry panels and has appeared as a guest speaker at numerous real estate conferences. As an athlete growing up, Johnson originally set out to work in the health and fitness field. Working as a personal trainer after college, Johnson met a client who was a real estate developer, and he helped him transition into a career in commercial real estate. He says he would tell his younger self to travel a little more and seek different experiences as those experiences will help make more connections and create opportunities to meet more people. His advice to those entering the industry is succinct: “Relax a little bit and trust the everyday grind will pay off over time.”
Adam Johnson
When she was 18 years old, Tiffany Johnson earned her real estate license as a way to support herself through college. That early entrepreneurial spirit led her to a variety of career opportunities in real estate. When she graduated college, she was offered an opportunity with a healthcare REIT that allowed her to grow and explore many areas in commercial real estate. Today, Johnson is a managing director at CBRE within its global workplaces services and manages the firm’s EY account. She has held various roles at CBRE during the past 11 years, including global governance and operational strategy lead for the CBRE Google account where she led more than 1,200 employees across all service lines. During her time on the Google account, Johnson also held a role on the Global PMO team focusing on change management, and she served as the account global communications lead. She leads by example, inspires others and works tirelessly to find the best outcome for clients, colleagues, friends and family. Throughout her career, she has completed more than $1 billion in commercial real estate transactions. She is a co-founder and advisor of CBRE’s Global Center of Excellence, co-leader of CBRE GWS National Women’s Network and serves as a CBRE ethics and compliance ambassador. Furthermore, Johnson is an active member and leader of CREW Charlotte, where she currently is an ambassador offering mentorship to new members. Johnson shares five essential themes that guide her and would offer this advice to those entering the industry: prioritize goal planning, remember that relationships are key, maintain your values, keep your confidence and stay resilient. “Don’t be afraid to fail. It’s part of growing, learning, and striving for more,” she says.
Tiffany Johnson
Since joining Argyle Real Estate Partners LLC in October 2023, director of asset management Spencer Jackson has made a significant impact on the company’s asset management function and overall business. He has introduced and implemented an efficient approach to asset management that includes intricate financial analyses coupled with comprehensive reporting and strategic planning, as well as third-party property manager engagement facilitated by open and concise communication that has resulted in streamlined operations across Argyle’s portfolio. Jackson began his career as an analyst in 2014 with InvestRes, where he quickly moved through the ranks to become an asset manager overseeing a $300 million portfolio and regional manager overseeing a 2,000-unit portfolio. Later, he worked with ZMR Capital as director of asset management where he was responsible for managing more than $550 million in multifamily assets and helping grow that portfolio from 1,300 units to 6,000 units. Jackson is involved with local nonprofit organizations such as Tampa Connection, Cristo Rey Tampa and On-Bikes, a nonprofit organization committed to raising funds to provide bikes for at-risk youth including homeless and foster children. While studying economics in college, Jackson’s interest in CRE was sparked during a course taught by adjunct professor, author and CCIM instructor Blaine Strickland. Following college, Jackson joined Avesta’s multifamily business training program and completed a two-year rotational program which provided him with onsite property management, property accounting, construction management, acquisitions and asset management training. He credits the wide exposure he received from the program as a huge part of his current success and ultimate decision to pursue a long-term career in asset management.
Spencer Jackson
During her career spanning more than two decades, Julie Hyson has worked in architecture, engineering, development and construction and has come away with one simple goal, to fundamentally make the industry better. Hyson is part of JLL’s Project & Development Services global leadership team, overseeing aspects of the PDS business in more than 60 countries with more than 350 clients, including some of the most recognizable brands in the world. She is passionate about challenging her teams to think outside the box and promotes innovative thinking via mini hackathons designed to tackle real-life client challenges. One such hackathon yielded an idea to donate furniture from a hotel remodel that otherwise was destined for the landfill to an organization helping families in need furnish homes. A more recent hackathon centered around sustainability and helped establish a framework for sustainable project management. Previously, Hyson was the managing director and lead for PDS business in the western region, where she was responsible for leading a team of 650 project managers. Prior to JLL, she was VP and head of strategy for a global development and construction company where she developed and implemented progressive procurement and execution strategies for projects leveraging alternative and collaborative delivery methods such as public-private partnerships, integrated project delivery, joint-ventures and progressive design-build. Although she originally set out to become a nurse, Hyson was drawn to CRE in part because her father worked in construction and built their first family home by hand. For newcomers entering the industry, particularly women, Hyson encourages them to never stop challenging the status quo and to continue to push for new ways of thinking and innovative ways of solving problems that will push themselves and the industry forward to be more successful.
Julie Hyson
Jesse Hudson’s early career was spent in operations for a subcontractor in Phoenix, where he worked his way up the ladder. Seeking new challenges, he decided to take a leap of faith and leave an industry he knew well to pursue an interest he had in commercial real estate. As Northmarq’s regional managing director for Phoenix, Las Vegas and Albuquerque, Hudson oversees a team of brokers and is responsible for procuring multifamily listings in Phoenix. He specializes in 100+ unit value-add, Class-A and build-to-rent properties. Hudson regularly meets with clients to manage their portfolio expectations and provide them with up-to-date market data, and he facilitates prospective buyer tours of the team’s listed properties. In 2022, Hudson brokered the sale of a 1,012-unit apartment community, which was the largest market-rate apartment community, based on unit count, in the greater Phoenix MSA. The sales price represented the second-largest, single-asset multifamily sale in Arizona history. As the market softened due to capital markets uncertainty, Hudson has shown leadership, positivity and commitment to his team. He dedicates his time to other brokers to help them navigate difficult transactions, sends positive messages to brokers and support staff celebrating their accomplishments and offers his advice during times of need. Colleagues say Hudson has exceptional leadership qualities, strong multifamily industry understanding and an unwavering commitment to excellence. His advice for those entering the CRE industry is to make meaningful connections and have a good mentor. “Smile and dial,” he says. “Let rejection fuel and inspire you to work harder and prove them wrong.”
Jesse Hudson
Recognizing that commercial real estate is one of the only major mature markets making high-stakes business decisions without an accurate understanding of its end-users, Kevin Hudak and two others created RCKRBX to deliver demand- side insights to the real estate industry. As chief research officer, Hudak collects and analyzes voice-of-the-customer data and insights and develops platform algorithms. His experience is drawn from roles at Brightline Strategies, a strategic consulting group focused on brand-business alignment, and The Tarrance Group, a political and public affairs polling firm. Under his guidance at Brightline and RCKRBX, Hudak has surveyed more than 22,000 Washington D.C.-metro-area renters and condo buyers and spoken directly to an additional 440 of them in focus groups. During the pandemic, he spearheaded research efforts for BOMA International, conducting three COVID-19 impact surveys over the course of three years, incorporating 7,700 office tenant decision-makers and influencers, and providing insights via webinars and white papers. He conducted similar research for Fairfax County Economic Development Authority and its efforts to support Fairfax County businesses and drive economic growth. Hudak co-hosts the “Business Books & Company” podcast, which reaches nearly 10,000 followers. His advice for those entering the industry is to read voraciously and to seek mentors and champions at every point in one’s career, especially those with knowledge/guidance outside of your current focus.
Kevin Hudak
Since joining BLT Enterprises in 2016 as manager of real estate investment and director of corporate philanthropy, Nikolette Huberman Jacob has been involved in more than $400 million in acquisitions and dispositions. Huberman Jacob stepped into VP and partner positions at the firm in 2021, when her father, BLT founder Bernie Huberman, passed away. Her role encompasses a wide spectrum of responsibilities from securing financing on all of BLT’s properties to spearheading the company’s philanthropic efforts, as well as collaborating with the team on strategic acquisition, development, leasing and asset management decisions. Her technical and relationship-building skills have shined while navigating the recent complex capital markets environment. For example, she negotiated and secured $30 million of debt on a portfolio of properties with a life company with very favorable rates in 2023. Some of her most notable contributions include her involvement in analyzing leases with Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon, Frito-Lay, FedEx and Volkswagen. Huberman Jacob has also driven the firm’s nearly $2 million in charitable contributions to more than 40 nonprofit organizations. She began her career at Wells Fargo, where she managed a diverse portfolio of clients with revenues from $10 million to $1 billion, executed commercial lending transactions and maintained a portfolio of more than $200 million in commitments. Her advice to those entering the industry is to be open to learning and absorbing all they can about the real estate business and their company’s operations and strategies. Her father embraced a culture of continued education and training that led to an empowered and highly proficient team, and she helps foster this environment at BLT. She also strongly believes in giving back to the communities that have helped her succeed and encourages others to do the same throughout their careers.
Nikolette Huberman Jacob
Growing up and living the majority of his life in urban communities such as Brooklyn and Newark, Brian Hinds is driven to bring meaningful change to communities that are overlooked by major developers. Bringing a diverse background and thought process into his development strategy, Hinds is committed to revitalizing underinvested communities across the US while embracing each community’s distinct culture and identity. Hinds has worked in the commercial real estate industry his entire career. He started as an analyst at JPMorgan in 2009, and in 2011 he purchased his first investment property. He joined Bridge Investment Group in 2019, attracted by a role that combined his passion for community revitalization, affordable housing and philanthropy. Today he is the director of acquisitions for Bridge, where he leads large-scale development projects across the country. He has transacted more than $3.5 billion of ground-up development projects to revitalize communities by partnering with local developers to erect opportunity zone projects in markets along the East Coast. He attributes his success to his people-centric attitude and knack for building meaningful relationships with his colleagues, developers and all interested parties, as well as the passion for real estate he has nurtured since he was young. Outside of his day-to-day duties, Hinds serves as a member of the steering committee for the Bridge Black Inclusion Group and is the New York City sponsor of Bridge’s ESG corporate committee. He encourages industry newcomers to take on projects others may not want to do in historically challenging sectors. To those entering the industry, Hinds shares two pieces of advice that he lives by. “You need to love what you do, and you need to be open to all facets of the industry.”
Brian K. Hinds
Terry Herlihy is proof that a career path is rarely linear, and failure is a part of the growth process. When he was a young professional, Herlihy found himself in a predicament. His job wasn’t the right fit for either side and he wanted to pivot to take more control of his life and career. In 2015, Herlihy made the move from a logistics position to NAI Hiffman, and he has since become one of the youngest shareholders in the firm’s history. As EVP of industrial services, Herlihy provides real estate solutions for his clients to ensure they are getting the most value out of their real estate. Whether it’s representing a landlord or tenant, he approaches each deal with realistic, concise expectations as he navigates potential challenges and overcomes adversity. Colleagues describe him as a genuine broker who operates with the utmost integrity. Navigating the competitive O’Hare market, Herlihy routinely deals with an interesting spectrum of assets. One client started in a 10,000-square-foot space and has grown to its current location of more than 300,000 square feet. Being even a small part of the reason businesses can expand and grow their footprint renews his motivation to find the greatest value for those with whom he works. In two of the past three years, Herlihy has reached the $1 million threshold in transactions, gaining recognition from the NAI Global network as a consistent top producer. The message he would impart to those entering the industry is one of dedication and pride in being your authentic self. “Clients are buying you as much as a product or service, which means the combination of work ethic and transparency add up to success for those who are willing to reach for it,” he says.
Terry Herlihy
Twelve years ago, Jilliene Helman saw an opportunity to democratize real estate investing by drastically lowering minimum investment requirements. Helman grew up in an entrepreneurial household, and her exposure to real estate through her family coupled with her professional background in banking and wealth management provided her with valuable insights into the investment landscape. She co-founded RealtyMogul to help transform real estate investing, previously accessible only to those with specialized knowledge and substantial capital and change the way CRE deals get funded. The RealtyMogul platform allows investors to construct their own diversified real estate portfolios and provides sponsors with access to a network of accredited investors and comprehensive support throughout the lifecycle of their real estate projects. Under Helman’s leadership as CEO, RealtyMogul has accrued 280,000 registered members and facilitated more than 38,000 investments, and it recently surpassed $1.1 billion in capital invested on the platform. Helman steers the company’s strategic direction and oversees its day-to-day operations. She is proud of cultivating a values-driven, high-performance culture within RealtyMogul that prioritizes team happiness. Moreover, Helman leads the charge in leveraging technology to enhance the experience for sponsors, facilitating smoother transactions and better outcomes for all parties involved. For those entering the commercial real estate industry, Helman advises gaining a deep understanding of the CRE market, including different asset classes, market trends and investment strategies. “Build strong relationships within the industry, and network with professionals such as brokers, investors, developers and lenders who can provide valuable insights, opportunities and support. Be prepared to adapt to market changes and overcome challenges,” Helman says. “The real estate industry is dynamic, and flexibility and resilience are key to long-term success.”
Jilliene Helman
From a young age, Alexander Harrold had an entrepreneurial mindset and a knack for math. Growing up, he was fascinated by real estate and found CRE to be the perfect mix of his interests. His initial foray into real estate was in the retail sector as an associate with Matthews Real Estate Investment Services, specializing in Burger King Assets during his first year. He was drawn, however, to the industrial sector, and built a new focus area for Matthews by becoming a top FedEx broker in the US. He has grown the team to focus on every credit industrial tenant nationwide, as well as building the firm’s local industrial teams in major markets across the country. His relentless work ethic propelled him quickly through the ranks, eventually leading to his promotion to senior VP and senior director in 2021. Last year, he was the company’s top producer, leading its industrial division, which has grown nearly 300% since 2020. Harrold has completed more than 500 transactions throughout his career. In his current position, Harrold not only manages his personal business portfolio and clientele but also works alongside executive leadership to enhance the industrial division’s presence and profitability. He also trains and mentors young agents. He is a leader in the company’s award-winning sales coaching and internship program, hosting several real estate trainings that are broadcast nationwide. His advice to industry newcomers is to be persistent and points to a Calvin Coolidge quote that says: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Alexander Harrold
After graduating from the University of South Carolina with a degree in real estate and marketing, Lindsey Halter moved to Charleston, SC to pursue her CRE career. She joined a commercial real estate company as a marketing assistant with the goal of eventually joining the brokerage team. Realizing that female brokers were scarce in CRE, she sought networking opportunities with other successful women in the industry. Through CREW, she met mentors, future teammates and business partners. Halter is a founding partner of boutique CRE firm Carolina Retail Experts, one of the only majority female-owned CRE brokerages in South Carolina. She leads the landlord services division, overseeing a portfolio of more than 3.5 million square feet of retail real estate. Known for her deal-making abilities, Halter maximizes sales volumes for retailers in her centers with synergistic merchandising that leads to more valuable space creating an overall increase in value of the assets for her clients. She combines a depth of expertise in commercial real estate with an understanding of market trends and client needs. As president of the CREW Charleston chapter in 2023, she demonstrated exceptional leadership, facilitating communication and contributing significantly to the organization’s growth. In addition, she recently accepted a nomination to serve on the American Heart Association Go Red executive leadership team for 2024. For those entering the industry, Halter encourages networking with other industry professionals and meeting as many people as possible. “My mentor once told me, ‘You can’t know everything, but you can know everybody,’” recalled Halter. “The relationships that you build today will be the foundation blocks for your future book of business for years to come.”
Lindsey Halter
By implementing proactive marketing strategies, real-time market insights and counseling tailored to each client, Newmark senior managing director Whitney Hake is known for delivering exceptional leasing results to office owners across Denver. With more than 13 years of industry experience, Hake brought her expertise to Newmark in 2023 alongside teammate and associate director Grace Lessard. Leveraging her extensive track record and strong client relationships, Hake’s addition to the firm has played a vital role in elevating its landlord representation services, particularly within the Southeast Denver and Downtown Denver markets. Her notable clients include Regent Properties, Griffin Capital Partners, Confluent Development, Pennybacker Capital Partners, Clarion Partners and Rialto. Hake’s influence extends beyond transactions. She is a frequent panelist at business networking events and has been published by The Colorado Real Estate Journal and The Denver Business Journal. She has received numerous accolades, including the Sherman R. Miller Trailblazer Award from NAIOP Colorado in 2020, the Impact Award from Transwestern Denver in 2018 and the Denver Power Woman recognition from Bisnow in 2018. She is actively involved in the industry as a member of NAIOP and the ULI Colorado Office & Industrial Council. Before joining Newmark, Hake served as an SVP at Transwestern, and she spent eight years at Cushman & Wakefield, where she ranked within the top 10% of the company’s brokers globally in 2016-2017. Hake believes that in the commercial real estate industry, success often parallels the effort you invest. Her advice to those entering the industry is to adopt a long-term strategy rather than aiming for quick wins, as sustained effort yields the greatest rewards. “For beginners, start your career in a role that’s aligned with your strengths, then surround yourself with professionals that complement your natural skills,” she says.
Whitney Hake
As a person drawn to all things creative for as long as she can remember, Kate Haas pursued an interior design career to express her creative nature and provide spaces for others that welcome, delight and improve everyday life. Since 2007, Haas has been involved in high-profile design assignments in the healthcare, academic, senior living and corporate sectors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Haas has risen through the ranks at DIGroup Architecture, from interior designer to senior interior designer to being named director of interior design last year. This year, Haas was also named one of DIG’s newest associates. She specializes in interior architectural design strategy, concept development, programming and space planning, modeling and rendering, and finish material and furniture selections. She takes the lead on every phase of assignments while managing a team of three and actively mentoring the next generation of interior designers. To those she mentors, Haas imparts her philosophies of setting realistic goals, bringing a “space positivity” mindset, being open to feedback and prioritizing communication. Haas is also an ambassador for DIG’s Architecture for Change axiom, which seeks to positively impact the most vulnerable communities from designing new inner-city schools and federally qualified health centers to repurposing historic buildings into supportive housing and community resources. Her advice to those considering a career in interior design is to channel courage over being safe. “Never be afraid to ask the right questions, cultivate your own design aesthetic that is authentically you, get to really know your client and communicate well with them,” says Haas. “Never stop seeking guidance and mentorship. And ultimately, have fun in this fast-paced rewarding career.”
Kate Haas
Known for being a team player, Jackson Grout credits his career success to a diligent work ethic and a positive attitude. These qualities were invaluable during the pandemic when Grout was working as a senior analyst on Mark IV Capital’s Las Vegas team. One of the company’s recently completed developments was less than 50% full, and numerous existing tenants needed rent relief. Grout not only worked with tenants seeking relief but also secured new tenants to completely lease the properties and secure the project’s long-term financing. Helping Las Vegas area businesses grow during the pandemic and stabilize a high-profile development for Mark IV is one of his proudest achievements. Today, Grout is VP of asset management at Mark IV, where he is responsible for supervising property maintenance, budgetary management, leasing operations, and underwriting efforts for new developments and existing projects. Grout also is part of Mark IV’s cultural committee, serving as a conduit between management, HR and employees to improve corporate culture and employee satisfaction. He prioritizes keeping morale high among his team members, strives to be someone people enjoy working with and for, and ensures credit is given where credit is due. Grout’s interest in CRE began in college during an internship with a commercial bank that helped underwrite CRE loans. He found that working with tangible assets was personally rewarding and recognizing buildings within his loan portfolio from his hometown of Clovis, CA emphasized the meaningful impact that a career in CRE could have. Grout’s advice for young professionals in real estate is to take on as much responsibility as possible and look for opportunities to work alongside experienced individuals. “Exposure to new and complex problems and learning from those with more experience than you are some of the best ways to grow your knowledge base,” says Grout. “It will definitely help your career grow.”
Jackson G. Grout
Cushman & Wakefield executive director Ali Greenwood is recognized as a top broker and data center expert with more than 15 years as a specialist in this asset class. Throughout her career, Greenwood has executed nearly $2.8 billion in data transactions and more than 1.8 Gigawatts in transaction volume. Greenwood provides services including customized strategy development and execution, site/provider selection and negotiations, financial analysis, portfolio and asset valuation, site acquisitions and dispositions, and build-to-suit projects. Throughout the past few years, she has spearheaded multiple data center solutions for her high-profile clients, including a Fortune 500 financial services firm that needed a multimarket national data center to be co-located in Dallas and Phoenix. Greenwood worked on behalf of the client to contract 7.5 megawatts for more than $32 million in total contract value, making it one of the largest enterprise data center transactions for 2021 in the U.S. Greenwood is a member of several organizations that strive to recruit more women in STEM and IT disciplines and is asked to speak at conferences and participate in panels all over the world to bring attention and education to the growing number of job opportunities in the IT sector for women. In addition, she is an active board member of Beacon Pointe Private Wealth Management and a member of the Infrastructure Masons. Her advice to those looking to join this space is: “Endeavor to find your niche, your passion, your stride, and find your value proposition as soon as possible. You should feel that you are insanely invaluable to your clients and customers. They are not buying a specific product. They are hiring you and your value add to guide them through a process to solve a critical problem.”
Ali Greenwood
During his eight years as a leader at Interstate Equities Corp., Brendan Gibney has helped quadruple the firm’s assets under management while leading its expansion into several new markets. As director of investments at the firm, he oversees all acquisitions, dispositions and capital markets efforts, including more than $2 billion of apartment transactions across the West Coast. He was promoted to his current role in 2022 and in 2023 he closed three significant acquisitions totaling $68 million, two of which were off-market. The deals – totaling 253 rental apartments in Washington and Northern California, all of which are being acquired from long-term family ownership groups – are being followed with renovations and safety improvements to bring them up to modern standards. Before joining IEC, Gibney was on the real estate direct investments team at Partners Group, in the San Francisco office covering all asset classes across North America. Previously he was on the investments team at the JBG Cos., where he acquired, disposed and recapitalized assets exceeding $1 billion in total value. Gibney graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in management.
Brendan Gibney
Joseph Gervino’s journey into commercial real estate stemmed from a passion for the industry that prompted a career transition from his original role as an analyst. His fascination, particularly with the dynamic New York City market, has been a driving force behind his career. Gervino has a track record of success both in tenant and landlord representation. He is a senior director at Avison Young, where he has secured leases totaling more than 333,475 square feet during the past 18 months He helped secure new leases for tenants in industries such as venture capital, engineering, finance, construction and law. He has spent the past three years developing and leading training programs for junior brokers who are aspiring to CRE careers. During COVID-19, Gervino was appointed to create these training programs, elevating morale, and providing support to junior brokers nationwide and internally. These efforts led to Gervino being recognized and selected by Avison Young for its future leaders program. He has been recognized with several awards, validating the success of this approach and underscoring his enthusiasm, dedication and commitment to professional excellence. Gervino’s advice to newcomers echoes his own approach: Embrace the ever-evolving nature of the industry and the diversity of experiences it offers. He emphasizes seizing each opportunity for learning and personal growth and advocates for a mindset of continual development.
Joseph M. Gervino
Alex Gendelman began his career at Goldman Sachs as an investment banking analyst and later joined the real estate investing team at Morgan Stanley. After several years working in the traditional real estate private equity and finance space, he decided to pursue a role at Mavik Capital Management that allowed him to leverage his institutional foundation and equity background in a nimble and entrepreneurial environment. He quickly made an impact on Mavik, offering a range of experience across debt and equity as well as property types to his new team. Today he is a VP of investments at Mavik, where his responsibilities include sourcing debt and equity deals and managing processes from underwriting and due diligence to closing. He wears many hats at the firm and has participated in asset management, fundraising, business strategy, hiring and team development. Within his first three years at Mavik, Gendelman created the firm’s first-ever equity investment vertical. The firm has executed more than six equity transactions and Mavik’s equity portfolio has grown to more than $350-400 million in gross asset value and more than four million in total square footage. Gendelman has also taken on a significant role in the mentorship and professional development of associates and analysts across the investment team. He plays an active role in talent acquisition for the associate pool on Mavik’s investment team and has leveraged his own network to help build out the team. For those entering the industry, Gendelman’s advice is to stay hungry and entrepreneurial. He encourages those coming up behind him to never be afraid to chart their own career path and break away from the norm.
Alex M. Gendelman
Conrad Geis was born into the commercial real estate business. His grandfather, Erwin Geis, launched a small construction business in Macedonia, Ohio, in 1967 that continued to be led by his children and now his grandson. As the third generation of the family-owned company, which he leads as president, Conrad Geis continues to grow the company through the execution of complicated projects. Today Geis Development is a multi-million-dollar development and construction business with more than 560 skilled professional staff and 100,000 tradespeople. His primary role at Geis Development is the acquisition of existing buildings, sale-leasebacks, real estate financing and joint-venture efforts, and he oversees strategic planning and management of day-to-day operations including deal structure, budget preparation, due diligence, pro-forma review, leasing, finance, and construction of new development deals. Geis oversees more than $450 million in projects in Ohio, the Carolinas and Florida. He is known as an effective communicator and a motivated learner who seeks opportunities to acquire skills in design and construction. He has worked on many local projects during his time with the company including The Centro Apartments, Legacy 500K, Meridian Business Park in Fort Myers as well as out-of-state projects in North Carolina and Cleveland. Geis is extremely involved in Southwest Florida as a member of the Certified Commercial Investment group, Naples Chamber of Commerce, Punta Gorda Chamber of Commerce, ULI and the Young Presidents Organization.
Conrad Geis
Holland & Knight LLP partner Pedro Gassant specializes in Miami governmental advocacy and development focused on land use, zoning and procurement matters. He handles intricate issues, such as comprehensive development master plan amendments and high-stakes Environmental Quality Control Board applications. Throughout the past three years, Gassant has obtained approval for more than 6.5 million square feet of commercial and industrial development, 7,500 residential units and 3,800 student seats for charter schools. He also has successfully appealed the imposition of impact fees, obtained a $4.7 million impact fee refund and obtained approval for the first sewage treatment package plant outside of the Urban Development Boundary in Miami-Dade County in more than 30 years. Gassant was drawn to the commercial real estate industry because it is an area of law that has a tangible impact on improving communities and providing essential resources to people. He is proud that his legal work within the commercial real estate industry helps enhance communities and provide people with the means to contribute to their society. Gassant’s advice to incoming industry professionals is to align their pursuits with their passion, whether in residential, commercial or industrial real estate. He emphasizes the importance of remembering that work has the power to enhance people’s living spaces, workplaces, and access to goods and services, thereby making a meaningful difference in society.
Pedro Gassant
Zachary Flora has been one of the loudest and most influential voices in communicating the link between health and the built environment throughout the past decade. His efforts have led to more than 1.2 billion square feet of commercial real estate joining the Fitwel platform across more than 50 countries. Flora joined Active Design Advisors Inc., the operator of the Fitwel Certification System, in 2018 to support REITs, investment managers and real estate companies, and within six years he transitioned into the role of EVP of growth where he leads the firm’s business development, partnerships and business intelligence teams. Under his leadership, Fitwel played a vital role during the pandemic in ensuring assets were meeting the needs of the people who work and live there. Since then, he has played an integral role in the development of a newly launched solution by Fitwel to help commercial real estate assess, validate, and benchmark their efforts to prioritize public health strategies and make informed decisions on how to manage risk by focusing on people. He developed a passion for this sector during a college course that highlighted the intersection of the built environment and public health. He advises those entering the industry to focus on people and communities rather than brick-and-mortar business. “Real estate is more and more an experience, and the way we design and operate these spaces has a tremendous impact on the lives of the people who occupy them,” he says. “In turn, those people have a tremendous impact on the value and viability of real estate. Regardless of where in the real estate lifecycle you are – development, leasing or management – it is important to prioritize people.”
Zachary Flora
After getting his feet wet at Mark IV Capital’s corporate headquarters in southern California and growing into his role as VP of development and asset management, Jay Filley moved to Denver to help grow the firm’s local team and portfolio of properties. Since the move, Filley has increased the Denver team to six total staff members and moved them into permanent office space. He is responsible for the entire life cycle of Mark IV deals in Colorado including acquisition, development, asset management and disposition. Filley has increased the firm’s Denver presence to nine properties comprising 800,000 square feet of built office and industrial space and 70 acres of land under development. In addition to increasing office building occupancy, Filley’s achievements include a recent 55-acre off-market land transaction in which the firm will be involved in future phases of an already-approved existing development. As a senior leader in the Denver office, he is responsible for training his team members and elevating their skill sets, and he serves as a mentor and advisor to his younger team members. He also reports directly to Mark IV’s executive management, providing them with monthly financials and making quarterly reports to the board of directors on the performance of the Colorado properties and transactions. Prior to Mark IV, Filley managed distressed debt for a real estate investor for five years. He is an industry advocate as a member of NAIOP and its leadership development forum, an industry networking group focused on helping young professionals network with senior real estate leaders and peers around the country. His advice for rising young professionals is to build a network and get to know different decision-makers. “Most leaders in the industry are very happy and eager to support the growth and careers of highly motivated young executives,” he says.
Jay F. Filley
With a lifelong dedication to real estate innovation, Jackson Feder has made many impactful PropTech investments and helped transform community engagement in the New York City real estate community. As a high school student, Feder founded Exxyte, a platform addressing the issue of student loan debt. This early venture gave him experience in entrepreneurship and evaluating potential investments. Following that, Feder joined Armory Square Ventures as an investor and showcased his ability to identify promising companies in nontraditional tech hubs such as Upstate New York and Indianapolis. In 2021, he joined New York-based venture capital firm MetaProp as an investor spearheading multiple investments in PropTech companies. Today, as a senior associate on the venture capital investment team, Feder focuses on sourcing, evaluating, and investing in the next generation of high-growth technology companies transforming the real estate technology sector. He led the sourcing, diligence and close of MetaProp’s recent investment into Pest Share, a Boise-based tech-enabled service for pest remediation. He helped MetaProp win the lead check position for the round after a competitive process, marking the firm’s first investment out of its new Fund IV. Feder was drawn to a career in commercial real estate because of its unique blend of tangible asset investment and the opportunity for impact. Recognizing the potential to contribute to the development and reshaping of the future of the built world, he saw an avenue to merge his interest in technology, entrepreneurship and real estate. Feder started in the industry as a sector-specific real estate venture capitalist at a generalist VC fund.
Jackson Feder
Nicholas Falcone co-founded short-term rental firm Rentyl Resorts and has grown the company from a startup to a market leader. As CEO, Falcone has expanded Rentyl beyond traditional hospitality norms by adding asset management, legal, financial, site plan and construction services to its menu of offerings. This business model creates opportunities for residential developers, resort brands and homeowners to participate in revenue streams previously unavailable to them. Under Falcone’s guidance, Rentyl Resorts has nearly quadrupled its portfolio to 92 resorts from 25 and employees have more than doubled to 450 from around 200 at the end of 2020. Within the past year, Falcone also has added management of multifamily assets and three retail centers representing hundreds of millions of dollars in asset value and is leading the launch of Rentyl Homes, Rentyl Apartments and the multi-industry loyalty program Spire Loyalty. A South Florida native and the son of the respected real estate developer Art Falcone of The Falcone Group, Falcone’s professional journey began in 2011 when he co-founded NDM Hospitality Services LLC. He started with the vision of becoming a multifaceted hospitality, real estate and technology conglomerate. Falcone advises those entering the industry to obtain a great mentor and learn at the ground level. He notes, “We’ve been lucky to enter the real estate field through operations and management, which has provided us with a different perspective and allows us to pivot faster if the initial plans aren’t going exactly as expected.”
Nicholas R. Falcone
Greystar managing director for investment management services Michael Erickson was key to underwriting the firm’s acquisition of Educational Realty Trust in 2018 and has helped Greystar grow its student housing platform throughout the US since then. Throughout the past three years, Erickson has led numerous US student housing transactions totaling nearly $2.2 billion in value. His team has acquired 23 student housing assets at a cumulative purchase price of $1.5 billion and sold 16 assets for gross proceeds of $629 million. During 2020, when COVID-19-related fears led many universities to temporarily transition from in-person to virtual learning and close or materially change operations at on-campus residence halls, Erickson led a significant recapitalization of a large on-campus portfolio that had been developed by Greystar’s student housing strategy in a public-private partnership, allowing Greystar’s fund to maintain a controlling interest in a cash flowing portfolio while helping mitigate market concentration risk and providing liquidity to recycle into accretive student housing development opportunities. He also led the equity capitalization efforts of four student housing developments totaling $671 million in project costs. Erickson began his career in public accounting at a Big Four accounting firm but quickly realized his passion and interests aligned more closely with private equity or principal investment where he could play a role in a company’s strategy and value creation. He developed a particular interest in institutional rental housing, given its focus on meeting a fundamental need and leasing and operational characteristics that have proven resilient during recessionary periods and provided growth potential in inflationary periods. Erickson encourages anyone interested in pursuing a career in commercial real estate to actively build a network and seek out a mentor they respect professionally and personally. His greatest takeaway throughout his career is that relationships are paramount to career growth and job satisfaction.
Michael Erickson
Within the commercial real estate industry, Ahmad Elayyan has a unique ability to merge advanced technical analysis with an expert understanding of human elements that drive the business. This data-driven decision-making has helped him develop various innovative analytical models to allow Basis Industrial to pinpoint emerging markets, assess property potential and optimize investment strategies. As managing director of acquisitions and underwriting, Elayyan oversees multitenant industrial acquisitions, leasing, underwriting, capital markets and capital raising efforts. Leading a team of nine property managers, he identifies, underwrites and negotiates purchase agreements and conducts due diligence for all new transactions. His efforts have secured an additional two million square feet under contract. Elayyan also is adept at cultivating authentic relationships within the industry, recognizing that real estate is as much about people as it is about properties. Initially, he assumed real estate was all about residential sales until he was introduced to the CRE world during an internship at PwC during his junior year at UCLA. He was captivated by the tangible nature of the commercial real estate industry and the ability to see the results of work in the physical world. For those new to the industry, his advice is to confront challenges head on. “If those new to the industry embrace the journey with a positive spirit, relentless determination, and an immense passion for their work, there is no doubt they will end up on the other side, proud of what they can and have accomplished,” he says.
Ahmad Elayyan
A partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, Seth Niedermayer has a knack for finding creative solutions and building lasting relationships with his clients, whether they are buying, developing, selling, leasing or financing properties of all kinds, from casinos, stadiums and movie studios to multifamily buildings, skyscrapers, data centers and life science labs. He spent the first five years of his legal career focused on lending transaction work for banks and large private equity firms. Although he liked his colleagues and the work, he wanted to do more to help companies bring their vision to reality, starting from the inception of the idea through all stages of development and operations. He has counseled his clients on some of the largest real estate transactions in the country, including Mitsui Fudosan America Inc.’s joint-venture with the Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group for the acquisition and $4 billion development of 50 Hudson Yards. Niedermayer coordinates multidisciplinary teams that ensure frictionless service on and a fully integrated approach to any type of complex real estate transaction. Niedermayer supports various pro bono initiatives and is currently representing asylum seekers from Senegal and Jamaica. He has successfully obtained asylum for a Russian applicant after a multiyear asylum process. He also works with and mentors junior lawyers who are seeking to enter and succeed in real estate. He encourages them to read as much industry news as possible to become familiar with the players and trends and to get involved in industry groups that have a real estate division to meet other people in real estate. “Real estate, as much or more than other areas, is a networking-based business so the more people you know and can connect, the better,” he says.
Seth R. Niedermayer
Nhan Nguyen Le is a first-generation immigrant who quickly built his company and reputation from the ground up and has become one of the most dominant forces in the challenging domain of student housing in Berkeley, CA. Growing up in poverty, Nguyen Le capitalized on a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkeley to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams, growing his portfolio from a single duplex to more than $300 million in assets under management. As CEO of Valiance Capital, he oversees acquisitions, development, asset management and property management. This multifaceted role requires a comprehensive understanding of the real estate market and the ability to navigate the complexities of the Berkeley student housing sector. Simultaneously, as CEO of The Berkeley Group, he manages the top owner-managed property management firm in Berkeley. This role involves a dual challenge of maintaining operational excellence while expanding the company’s footprint. His responsibilities range from day-to-day management to building a robust team to garnering greater market share and building reputation. Throughout the past three years, Nguyen Le has demonstrated exceptional leadership and achieved significant professional milestones, including the expansion and growth of Valiance’s student housing portfolio in Berkeley. This trajectory showcases not only strategic foresight but also effective and consistent execution. His advice for those entering the industry is rooted in accepting the unpredictability of life. He emphasizes the importance of taking a leap of faith and believing in yourself while taking consistent action forward to achieve your goals. “Strive for excellence, be around excellence, and arm your mindset with resilience,” he says.
Nhan Nguyen Le
Following a successful professional soccer career in California and South America, Justin Myers decided to dive into the real estate business, drawn by the abundant opportunities and thriving office market in New York City. Real estate brokerage runs in Myers’ family, with both of his parents working in the commercial and residential sectors of the industry. Since joining Lee & Associates NYC as an associate in 2012, Myers has built extensive market knowledge, diverse client relationships and leadership skills. As an executive managing director at the firm, he specializes in tenant representation and office leasing in New York City with clients ranging from the financial services, technology, medical and legal industries. Early in his career, Myers focused on becoming an expert in tenant representation in Soho. Anticipating the area’s growth in the office and retail markets, he familiarized himself with notable buildings and established tenants. Myers earned the firm’s top producer award four times. One of his most notable transactions during the pandemic was a series of deals with HelloFresh in a partnership that began in 2019 when Myers and his team represented the company in a 50,000-square-foot office lease. Since then, Myers has grown the relationship into multiple deals, securing several leases throughout the country, including 350,000 square feet of industrial space in Dallas, 200,000 square feet of industrial space in New Jersey, and 10,000 square feet at Brooklyn’s Industry City. Myers’ colleagues describe him as a driven, intelligent, personable and resourceful team leader who consistently motivates and inspires his peers. In addition to closing deals, he mentors junior staff, making himself available to answer questions, offer advice and provide support within the firm.
Justin Myers
Before transitioning to a career in real estate, Feras Moussa worked for Microsoft as a program manager and was an invited expert of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), where he played a pivotal role in shaping the web’s future. He left Microsoft to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations, demonstrating his willingness to take risks and his commitment to making a positive impact. He quickly built a portfolio of single-family rentals and multifamily properties, and his unique combination of skills and expertise in technology and real estate has allowed him to create significant value for his clients and investors. Moussa co-founded Disrupt Equity with Ben Suttles, leveraging his tech background to disrupt traditional property investment methods. Disrupt Equity was born from the desire to create safe, quality housing through strategic upgrades, hands-on customer service-oriented management, and targeted acquisitions in growing markets. Under Moussa’s leadership, Disrupt Equity has acquired more than 5,000 units and manages more than $800 million in assets under management. As managing partner, Moussa advocates for integrating cutting-edge tech solutions into property management He shares insights and expertise through participation in industry forums and thought-leadership initiatives as well as podcasts, events, conferences and webinars. He dedicates many hours to inspiring other investors to take action, pursue their goals and invest in a way that dramatically improves their financial futures. For those looking to enter the multifamily real estate industry, he advises to never underestimate the power of continuous learning and surround yourself with knowledgeable partners. “Network extensively, show genuine curiosity and remember, this business isn’t just about properties; it’s about building communities and impacting lives,” he says.
Feras Moussa
Matthew Mousavi appreciates the dynamic nature of CRE brokerage, including the excitement and the ups and downs. He says he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Mousavi entered real estate as an intern at the age of 19 while working on his undergraduate finance degree. He continued to work within CRE during graduate school and then became the top producer at the firm where he worked following college. Today, Mousavi is the managing principal and co-founder of the national net lease group and west investment properties group at SRS Capital Markets. The NNLG is one of the top three net lease investment teams nationally. Throughout his career, Mousavi has transacted more than $12 billion in volume. Among his notable transactions was the ground lease acquisitions of two Chick-fil-A assets totaling $15 million in Palm Desert and Mission Viejo. The blended closing cap rate was 3.83%, marking the lowest cap rate for Chick-fil-A. Mousavi manages a team of 90 professionals focusing exclusively on the sale of single-tenant and multitenant retail properties and manages the sale of more than $2 billion in available property in more than 40 states. He mentors new students as well as graduating students, and because of his own diverse background, Mousavi focuses on mentoring foreign and first-generation graduate students on how to break through career barriers in CRE. He believes that young people should seriously consider a career in CRE because it offers a range of niches and specialties, as well as various product types, from retail to industrial and office. Within these areas, there is also development, brokerage, finance and other specialties that give them choices and the opportunity to find passion and enjoyment.
Matthew Mousavi
Derek Mosiman joined Swinerton as an intern 14 years ago — his first job upon graduating from college — and has rapidly ascended through the company’s ranks. Most recently, he was promoted to division manager in 2022, overseeing the company’s growing Atlanta office, which doubled its revenues during Mosiman’s first year in the role. As a lead in the company’s aviation business, Mosiman helped Swinerton’s Atlanta office win a role as a managing general contractor on-call for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. With Mosiman’s help, Swinerton has also established itself as a leader in the Atlanta construction scene, undertaking projects for clients ranging from large tech firms to multifamily housing developments. As a leader, he provides just enough structure and direction for his team to understand the scope of a project, but enough space to let their own creativity and individual accountability shine. While he has a strong work ethic, he also maintains a sense of balance and encourages others to do so as well, understanding that family obligations and personal pursuits are important. After spending his career working for Swinerton on both coasts, Mosiman offers a unique perspective on the commercial real estate business, from project life cycles to community involvement. He often suggests that newcomers stay curious and ask questions. He believes in uplifting communities to make them better places for everyone to live and prosper. As such, he serves on the board of directors for the Atlanta chapter of Rebuilding Together, an organization that works to make high-risk homes safe and healthy and to help low-income seniors and veterans age safely in place. Using his construction background and leadership skills, he has helped expand the organization’s local footprint and grow its mission through additional board member positions and volunteer positions.
Derek Mosiman
Following the announcement of KDC’s first fund, the company sought a dynamic individual to establish a new position focused on leasing. That person was Aarica Mims, who joined KDC in 2021 as SVP and director of leasing. Her responsibilities include acquiring new assets, multitenant office leasing, pre-leasing of development sites, single-tenant build-to-suit corporate development leasing and overseeing corporate and property marketing. Mims has been at the forefront of some of North Texas’ largest lease transactions, acquisitions, new developments and redevelopment projects throughout her 17-year career, including a noteworthy project during the challenging economic environment last year. The complex 238,000-square-foot lease of Bank of America at Parkside required several years of talks, negotiations and pitching to convince Bank of America to relocate from its long-time headquarters in downtown Dallas. At several points in the negotiations, multiple challenges surfaced that could have ended the process. However, Mims tackled each issue head-on and kept a positive mindset despite the turbulent market conditions and the multiple needs of all stakeholders. Mims started in the commercial real estate industry at age 19, working as an intern for the Staubach Co. Early in her career, she knew she loved the transaction part of the business and thrived on the relationship aspect. Mims has also made a strong impact on the industry through her mentorship of young women in the business. Her advice to those starting in the industry is to surround yourself with the right people and learn the industry from the best. “Constantly push yourself to be better and learn new skills, so you are at the top of your game,” she says.
Aarica Mims
In just six years of developing residential real estate, Alison Mills has racked up $1.16 billion in project starts, with 2,780 units already delivered or under construction, totaling 3.5 million square feet of development. As the VP of design and development for CRG, Mills is the driving force behind CRG’s residential development activities, providing leadership and strategic direction across the entire project life cycle. She also plays a public-facing role representing CRG in interactions with city councils, planning commissions and other jurisdictional entities during the entitlement process. A recent example of her engagement with stakeholders occurred with CRG’s new student housing development near the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where soaring enrollment and limited housing supply created demand for new housing options. CRG acquired a large parcel adjacent to the campus, but there were sensitivities in redeveloping the property because it was located in a historic neighborhood. Mills formed a community steering committee to ensure local insights informed the new project’s design while honoring the block’s rich history. With a background in architecture from Princeton and a master’s degree in city planning focusing on real estate development from UC Berkeley, Mills has honed a unique skill set encompassing design and development expertise. During her tenure at Kohn Pedersen Fox in New York City from 2014 to 2016, Mills was exposed to high-profile developers who inspired her to take a seat on the other side of the table. Armed with a desire to be involved in every aspect of the development process, from site selection and acquisition to project design and delivery, she pursued further education to realize her ambitions. Her advice to aspiring real estate professionals is to embrace boldness and believe in your ability to make a difference.
Alison Mills
Doug Middleton always had an intuition he’d be in commercial real estate. A transplant from Southern California, he came east to play football at Penn. His mother was a flight attendant based in New York and his uncle had a large multifamily portfolio in California, which taught him about CRE. After college, he worked at Eastdil, learning the ins and outs of the property sales business. He advanced rapidly at the firm, from analyst to director of investment sales in less than 10 years while executing more than $45 billion of transactions. Five years ago he jumped to CBRE, where today he is a vice chairman and oversees the day-to-day operations of CBRE’s institutional investment property sales group while sourcing and executing transactions for commercial assets across New York City. Emerging from the pandemic with a strong conviction to demonstrate the long-term health of the investment sales market in New York City, Middleton and his team executed three well-timed deals. First, they closed on the sale of 410 Tenth Avenue for $952 million in November 2020 – the largest sale of an office building in the US since the start of the pandemic. This deal was followed by the sale of 450 Park Avenue for $445 million in April 2022 and 475 Fifth Avenue for $290 million in May 2022. His advice to those entering the industry is to be like a sponge. ”Learn from the talented people around you, remain true to yourself, and don’t try to be someone you’re not,” he says. “Be excellent at multitasking and pay great attention to detail.”
Doug R. Middleton
Andrew McNulty brings a unique combination of financial expertise and industry experience to his role as associate director on Avison Young’s tri-state debt and equity finance team. He started his professional career as a real-estate- focused CPA and after a few years working on large, complex development projects, he knew real estate was for him. His desire to get into the transactional side of real estate led to a natural fit with debt and equity financing. At Avison Young, McNulty navigates complex real estate investments across all property types, including sourcing capital across various components of the capital stack, encompassing senior and subordinated financing as well as JOINT-VENTURE equity. His ability to understand the various business plans and local real estate markets leads to creative solutions for capitalization. His background includes financial roles at Raith Capital Partners and Rockrose Development, which provided him with hands-on experience in deal structuring, financial analysis, and market dynamics. McNulty demonstrates a collaborative approach to client engagements and his team. His leadership is evident in his ability to coordinate with diverse stakeholders, communicate effectively and drive initiatives toward a successful outcome. He has closed $400 million of financings since the start of 2022, including five office transactions during recent volatility and distress in the capital markets for office buildings. His advice to those entering the industry is to have a long-term view. “Your career path may not be a straight line in this business, but if you’re patient, have a strong interest in real estate, and willingness to learn you will be well-positioned to ultimately succeed,” he says.
Andrew McNulty
As a counsel in Skadden’s New York real estate group, Troy McNamara has distinguished herself as a key contributor on headline real estate investment and finance mandates on behalf of major national players. She represented SL Green, New York’s largest office landlord, in connection with a $3 billion 10-year fixed-rate refinancing of its One Vanderbilt tower, involving what was the largest-ever nonportfolio, single-asset, single-borrower securitization to date. McNamara also was a lead negotiator for the mortgage and mezzanine financings involved in Skadden’s representation of Silverstein Properties in its $430 million acquisition of US Bank Tower, a 1.4-million-square-foot office building that is considered the defining anchor of the downtown Los Angeles skyline. McNamara’s practice encompasses a broad range of real estate matters. She regularly represents clients in connection with financing transactions, including senior, mezzanine and construction loans; intercreditor agreements; note purchases; and loan restructurings and workouts. In addition, her practice includes advising on joint-ventures, property acquisitions and dispositions, and development projects. McNamara was elevated to counsel in 2022 in recognition of her leadership and professional contributions. She mentors junior and summer associates and dedicates significant time to pro bono work. She was attracted to real estate law because of the tangible nature of the practice, and the ability to get involved in deals early. She encourages young real estate attorneys to gain broad exposure by working on a variety of real estate transactions, and offers two specific points of advice: strive to understand the broader transaction and how your contributions fit into the bigger picture and build and maintain relationships.
Troy McNamara
Following college, Matt McLennan spent several years in retail wine sales but ended up pursuing a career in CRE upon the advice and with the help of several friends who were real estate brokers. His early days in the industry were characterized by endless hours learning, prospecting, begging for meetings and scraping together business, but with a family to support, he was determined to succeed. Representing both tenants and landlords and focusing on the industrial space, McLennan provides leasing, sales, development, investment and valuation services in the Greater Puget Sound region. During his seven-year career, McLennan has completed more than three million square feet of sale and lease transactions, leased and sold more than 350 acres of land, and completed more than $300 million in transaction volume. He is a consistent leader and is respected by his counterparts. Today he is a shareholder and EVP at Kidder Mathews and a member of the firm’s new broker development committee, committed to ensuring that the voices of new brokers are represented and that training is sufficient. In 2021, 2022 and 2023 McLennan was named a Big Hitter — an award given to the top 10% of producers within the brokerage division. He has served as the secretary of the board and education chair for CCIM and is currently on the board of SIOR-Washington. He also joined the board of the Tacoma-Pierce County Economic Development Board, which works with companies interested in locating their business in the city of Tacoma and throughout Pierce County. McLennan’s advice to those entering the industry is to ask for help, have a strong work ethic and above all else, be honest and transparent with clients.
Matt K. McLennan
DLA Piper partner Thanos Matthai is known as an innovative practitioner and creative problem-solver in his representation of institutional real estate investment advisors, REITs, investment funds and developers in CRE transactions. Matthai became interested in commercial real estate in law school when he interned in the Greater Boston Legal Services’ Housing Unit, where he assisted attorneys representing low-income tenants in housing cases and disputes. He also clerked during law school and after law school for a judge in the Massachusetts Land Court, which exclusively handled real estate disputes. Developing relationships with other real estate professionals has been key to Matthai’s career and getting his start as a first-year associate in DLA Piper’s real estate group and his promotion to partner of the firm in 2021. He focuses on joint-ventures and complex financing structures in the multifamily, industrial/logistics, retail, office, lab/life science and senior living sectors. Matthai represents AEW Capital Management and ASB Capital Management in their investment, joint-ventures and financings of office, retail, data center, multifamily and industrial assets, and represents Union Square Station Associates in a platform joint-venture with Affinius Capital in development, land use, land assemblage, joint-venture and financing matters for the 2.4-million-square-foot Union Square redevelopment in Somerville, Massachusetts. Matthai advances the legal profession with his pro bono and fundraising efforts on behalf of those in need. Several years ago, he helped launch DLA Piper’s pro bono housing project with GBLS. He is a member of the South Asian Bar Association of Greater Boston and is passionate about diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. Matthai encourages those entering the industry to attend industry events, make connections and develop relationships.
Thanos Matthai
Nora Martins was born in New York City but grew up overseas as the child of a U.S. diplomat, which taught her to be adaptable and comfortable in unfamiliar situations. Prior to becoming an attorney, Martins built skills in design and worked at an architecture firm during college, introducing her to the world of land use law. While attending law school, she worked at a boutique land use and zoning firm as a paralegal. This unique professional perspective and background is a value-add to her clients, whom she serves today as a partner at Akerman LLP. Martins focuses exclusively on New York City zoning and land use matters of all sizes and types, from mid-size affordable housing buildings to complex large-scale developments and mixed-use waterfront developments. She frequently appears before agencies, local community boards and elected officials on behalf of her clients. She is an active member of the ULI NEXT New York cohort, participates in Akerman’s membership in the New York State Association for Affordable Housing and is a Real Estate Board of New York member. Within Akerman’s New York office, Martins has been part of the team tasked with improving the surrounding community. She has organized and led the office’s annual fundraising events, focusing on assisting community organizations that target education and youth development. Within the past year, Martins has led numerous transformative projects of importance to her developer clients and the public targeting affordable housing production, providing public access to the waterfront, expanding community healthcare facilities, and funding needed capital repairs for the New York City Housing Authority. Her advice to those entering the industry is to have a passion for the work and to find a mentor who shares that passion.
Eleanore “Nora” Martins
With a passion for finance and investing, an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to impact communities through housing, Madison Marceau decided to pursue a career in commercial real estate. He started his career at Goldman Sachs, acquiring and working out real estate loans from 2008 to 2011 during the Great Financial Crisis. He became skilled in the intricacies of distressed real estate investing and solving the challenges of working through special situations in all real estate asset types. He co-founded Kairoi Residential in 2017 and has led its growth to more than 550 associates. Marceau serves as president of acquisitions at the firm, where he identifies and executes strategic investment opportunities within the multifamily real estate sector. Leveraging his expertise in market analysis, financial modeling and deal structuring, Marceau oversees the evaluation and negotiation of potential acquisitions, ensuring alignment with Kairoi’s investment objectives and growth strategies. He has closed more than $3 billion of multifamily transactions spanning nearly 30,000 units. Marceau fosters collaboration and empowerment within his team, encouraging open communication and creative problem-solving. Under his guidance, Kairoi has cultivated a reputation for integrity and professionalism, earning the trust and respect of clients and investors alike. For those entering the industry, Marceau emphasizes the importance of building a strong network of relationships, as success in commercial real estate often hinges on collaboration and partnership. Furthermore, Madison advises aspiring professionals to uphold integrity in all aspects of their lives, stressing the critical nature of maintaining professionalism and reputation within the industry, where credibility is paramount and reputation is irreplaceable.
Madison Marceau
Stream Realty Partners’ first summer intern, Kyle Luby, is now a partner and executive managing director at the firm. Following his internship, Luby began working full-time on Stream’s agency leasing team and within a couple of years was chosen to help open Stream’s Atlanta office, where he co-led the growth of the office brokerage platform in Stream’s first office outside of Texas. In 2011, the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors recognized Luby as the highest-producing broker across all product types and service lines in the market. In 2013, he relocated from Atlanta to open Stream’s Washington D.C. office. Under Luby’s direction, Stream has emerged as one of the area’s fastest-growing commercial real estate companies, expanding from two employees to nearly 100 with offices in Washington D.C. and Northern Virginia and assignments throughout the region, including Philadelphia, Richmond and New York City. The business has expanded into a full-service operation with office and industrial brokerage, tenant representation, property management, construction management and multiple successful investments. During the past three years, the region’s overall leasing and management portfolio increased from seven million square feet to 19 million square feet. Luby also serves on Stream’s Voyager Committee, which explores critical, real-time insights to anticipate trends, uncover opportunities and drive solutions for Stream’s office investor clients and professionals. Luby was introduced to the business by Stream co-founder Mike McVean through a family relationship.
Kyle Luby
Alexandra Loye has long been recognized as a leading life science and healthcare broker in Arizona. She is an executive managing director in Cushman & Wakefield’s Phoenix office, serving as a key member of both its capital markets and life sciences sectors. With more than 14 years of brokerage experience, she advises landlord, tenant and investor clients and has completed more than 500 sales and lease transactions valued at $1 billion during her career. Loye is a dual citizen born in Mexico and raised in the US. Dual citizenship and dual-language abilities have helped her from a real estate standpoint. Prior to Cushman & Wakefield, Loye was an SVP at Colliers, where she was recognized as a top producer in Arizona and the US. Last year, Loye was involved in brokering the second-largest office sale in the Phoenix metro area. She represented ViaWest Group in the sale of Blackhawk I, II and III, totaling 252,350 square feet to Big Sky Medical Real Estate, which is converting the property into a medical outpatient building. Clients say she is a pleasure to work with, is responsive and either has the right answers to questions or is willing to find them. Loye became interested in commercial real estate because she wanted to make a long-lasting impact in her community and felt that facilitating important transactions and new developments would allow her to do so. Her advice to anyone starting out is to work as hard and smart as possible and never give up.
Alexandra J. Loye
Michael Lehmann is a creative thinker who approaches deals from diverse perspectives and doesn’t give up even when challenges seem insurmountable. Since he was young, he has been enthusiastic about real estate thanks to having a grandfather involved in real estate and an uncle prominent in NYC development. At Yeshiva University, he pursued real estate classes and led the campus real estate club. Venturing into entrepreneurship, he launched a brokerage firm leasing apartments near campus. He secured an internship with the acquisitions team at Kushner by sending a cold email, and today he is VP of acquisitions at the firm, where he and his team are responsible for finance and investments including sourcing, underwriting, analyzing and executing acquisitions, dispositions, financings, development and lending. During his nearly nine years at Kushner, Lehmann has spearheaded numerous transactions, exceeding $5 billion in value. Most notably, he was instrumental in the $1.2 billion acquisition of a 16-property, 6,000-unit multifamily portfolio for which he oversaw underwriting, due diligence and execution. During COVID-19, he managed the capitalization of nearly $1 billion in development projects across the New Jersey and South Florida markets, and in the face of a tumultuous market this past year, he orchestrated the acquisition of a $40 million development site in Surfside, Miami, earmarked for the creation of the area’s most luxurious rental project, with a total estimated cost of $150 million. He prioritizes mentoring teammates and teaching interns, and he is always eager to share advice on how best to navigate the industry. Lehmann’s advice echoes his journey: network extensively, work harder than the people around you, and read as much as you can.
Michael Lehmann
At just 32 years old, Jeff Lefko has achieved nearly $3 billion in sales since 2017, a track record that has earned him recognition as a top producer at Hanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors for five consecutive years. He is the youngest EVP in the company’s history. Lefko specializes in advising clients in the acquisition and disposition of retail properties nationwide and credits his success to his continued focus on developing meaningful relationships that go beyond a singular transaction. Lefko has a keen ability to find opportunities and inefficiencies in the market and has represented various national and regional car wash chains to help them grow their business through sale-leasebacks. Lefko was also a pioneer in creating investment sales opportunities for single-tenant daycare and children’s learning centers and has helped clients create break-up-sale strategies where they purchase or develop an entire shopping center and then sell the center’s individual components to private investors looking for passive investments. Lefko’s real estate journey began at a young age, learning invaluable lessons from his mother, a successful retail broker in the Midwest. Every Saturday morning, he joined her as she drove around the Kansas City metro area, examining shopping centers and new retail developments. Through these drives, he learned to evaluate a property’s viability, strengths and weaknesses and gained a deep understanding of capitalization rates and net operating income. His mother’s wisdom extended beyond metrics, emphasizing the importance of making genuine connections over transactions. Lefko underscores the importance of avoiding overselling, stating that the long-term relationship should always come first and that no transaction is more important than the relationship. Treating buyers with the utmost care, akin to one’s own grandmother, and ensuring their safety in properties are keys to sound sleep and sustained success, he says.
Jeff Lefko
Before Michael Lee orchestrated multimillion-dollar real estate deals, he honed his work ethic tending crops on his family’s third-generation organic vegetable farm, Sang Lee Farms. In 1998, his mother inspired the family to start a retail farm stand, an innovation that also marked the beginning of Lee’s entrepreneurial spirit. In 2011, Lee dove into the business world. Drawing parallels between farming and real estate, he embraced the same relentless work ethic that had him working until sundown on the farm and joined HKS Real Estate Advisors at its inception. His initiation into the industry came through cold calling and weathering the aftermath of the 2008 recession. He closed his first loan – a ground-up condo construction loan in Brooklyn – just six months into his career, and he earned the role of partner four years later. Lee has closed $1.5 million in transactions since the start of his career. At HKS, Lee oversees the end-to-end deal execution process, ensuring that each transaction is meticulously managed from financial analysis and due diligence to negotiation and closing. He uses his capital markets expertise to structure innovative financing solutions for single assets, portfolios, development sites, construction projects, ground leases, joint-venture partnerships, and partial equity sales across assets nationwide. In his role as a leader and mentor to the HKS team, Lee is committed to fostering a culture of excellence, integrity and continuous learning. To those entering the industry, Lee offers the following advice: “Anyone can be successful in commercial real estate with hard work and sacrifice. Be patient. Success takes time, but be relentless in your pursuit of it. Be humble, and never stop learning.”
Michael Lee
After working in software development across the gaming, data security and mobile advertising industries, Andy Lee switched to the commercial real estate industry when he co-founded Dealpath in 2014. Entering with a background in software and tech, Lee was eager to work on and share the importance of the quantitative data that is crucial to CRE and how these numbers serve the industry to operate for the greater good of society. The Dealpath platform provides institutional investors with vetted, real-time deal information to fuel data-driven analysis and decisions. He is the company’s VP of engineering and leads its software developers and quality assurance teams, oversees the execution and delivery of Dealpath’s product and technical strategies to institutional clients, and helps shape the vision and strategy behind the platform by helping assess customers’ needs and curating solutions. As Dealpath expands its product offerings, Lee manages the full product lifecycle and evolution, building for the future while maintaining the workflows of current clients. Lee has played an integral part in Dealpath’s success during the past three years. Despite challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lee and the Dealpath leadership team have tripled the company’s size since 2019, growing from 35 employees to more than 100. As employees have returned to the office, Lee has remained vigilant in promoting connectivity within his team and ensuring a smooth transition into a hybrid work model. No matter the capacity in which one is working within the commercial real estate industry, Lee encourages those entering the field to invest in learning and self-growth. An individual’s passion for the industry should drive their willingness to learn and thrive in their career while also contributing to a goal that serves the greater community, he says.
Andy Lee
Chad Lavender began his career in senior housing brokerage before the asset class was established as a competitive investment type for institutional capital. Understanding demographic and economic shifts — particularly baby boomers entering retirement and substantial spending on healthcare – Lavender created a connected one-stop platform that serviced senior housing, medical office and hospital capital markets on behalf of institutional clients who were investing across the healthcare industry. Lavender co-founded a senior housing group with Ryan Maconachy and they have built out the platform ever since. He credits his success to hard work, diligence and self-motivation and encourages those entering the industry to value the same attributes. Lavender has completed investment sales, recapitalizations, debt and joint-venture equity transactions totaling more than $37 billion in value throughout the US. He is president of capital markets for North America at Newmark where he drives strategy and revenue growth across multifamily, office, industrial, retail and alternative asset classes. Formerly Newmark’s vice chairman and co-head of the healthcare and alternative real estate assets group, Lavender joined the company to form and co-lead the group in 2019. He was responsible for healthcare and senior housing-related investment advisory and equity transactions throughout the US. He also focused on medical office buildings, hospitals, life sciences and biotech practices as well as other alternative real estate asset classes. Lavender has an innate ability to lead top performers and upholds the firm’s collaborative and entrepreneurial culture. As a mentor to many aspiring young professionals in the business realm, Lavender is one of three executive chairs on the board of visitors at the University of Alabama, where he helps lead the organization in its efforts to advise students, fundraise and guide the path for the future of the business school.
Chad Lavender
Chad Kurz is one of the top investment sales brokers nationwide and a top producer at Matthews Real Estate Investment Services, a feat that he attributes to optimism, persistence and a strong work ethic As one of Kyle Matthews’ first mentee agents, Kurz began his career at Marcus & Millichap after receiving a recommendation from a coworker. He then followed Matthews to Colliers International, where he was integral to the growth of what is now Matthews Real Estate Investment Services. Kurz oversaw the firm’s net lease division, including recruiting and mentoring agents while working alongside executive leadership to develop and promote the division. After a stint as the firm’s market leader for the Dallas office, Kurz transitioned back to brokerage, and today as EVP of net lease retail, where he serves clients throughout the entire transaction process. Kurz has been involved in nearly 1,000 individual transactions for roughly $5 billion in total deal volume. He continues as a mentor and hosts training sessions for interns and new agents. He prides himself on understanding the impacts of micro and macro-economic factors, debt, income statements, depreciation and tax regulations on real estate. During COVID-19, Kurz saw the market’s uncertainty as a chance to advance. He finished 2020 with 79 transactions aided by a significant following in the pharmacy and healthcare industries. Kurz loves how anyone can be successful in commercial real estate if they are willing to put in the work and devote themselves to learning the intricacies of the business. His advice is to find a mentor who cares beyond the transactional relationship of real estate. “Find someone who wants success not only for themselves but for others and is willing to help along the way,” he says.
Chad Kurz
Angela Kuo’s passion for service dates back to her teenage years when she worked alongside local communities to build houses. As she got older, she focused on providing early education support and access to the arts in lower-income neighborhoods. Now, with skyrocketing housing costs driving a wealth gap in America, Kuo believes access to affordable housing is an important area of focus. Based in New York, Kuo is executive director and head of community development banking and agency lending treasury services at JPMorgan Chase. She is a high-impact employee who leads a national team of 10 and advises developers, multifamily owners and operators, and third-party property managers on solutions for cash management needs. Kuo and her team are solely dedicated to providing treasury banking solutions for clients that develop, own, operate and manage affordable housing across the country, as well as CDFIs, LIHTC Syndicators and NMTC & Historic Tax Credit clients. The recent market disruption has caused several issues regarding operations and cash management. When disruption began this year, Kuo and her team had several conversations with clients about diversifying and staggering their liquidity structure, focusing on stability and safety. This is particularly important because in the affordable housing space in general, but especially property management, organizations tend to concentrate their primary operations with one institution for ease of business. For those entering the industry, Kuo underscores the value of networking. She also highlights the importance of keeping up to date on current events, especially related to real estate, whether that be new developments, hottest markets for development or even policy affecting the industry.
Angela Kuo
With 18 years of experience solving complex CRE problems, JLL Americas head of consulting Amanda Kross was recently promoted in recognition of her contributions. In her new role, Kross is responsible for business strategy, talent strategy, financials and client offerings. She is also part of the Americas leadership team for JLL Work Dynamics. She oversees more than 110 employees in the US, Canada and Latin America. Prior to her promotion, Kross led JLL’s America’s People Experience team for Global Consulting, a team she helped establish, and expanded JLL’s capabilities and thought-leadership. Under her guidance, the practice saw remarkable growth, and she has been a driving force behind JLL’s human-centered design program, spearheading its implementation in 2023. She is known for her relentless pursuit of excellence. With a keen eye for talent, she fosters an inclusive and engaging work environment, encouraging collaboration and creativity. Kross studied design and environmental analysis at Cornell University, where she studied the psychological, physical, societal and political impacts the built environment has on our lives. She often returns to lecture on design management and strategy. Kross has spent her 18-year career focused on improving experiences in the built environment – workplaces, public spaces, universities, cultural and community institutions. With the advancement of technology, attention to individual health and well-being and shifts in expectations for how we work, live and play, Kross believes this is an important time to be doing this work. What she loves about both architecture and real estate is that it impacts all aspects of our lives and can have a positive influence if done well.
Amanda Kross
Cohen Property Law Group managing attorney Liam Krahe has a deep understanding of real estate transactions built through hands-on experience beyond theoretical knowledge. He is a trusted legal and business advisor on complex real estate transactions across the US and the Caribbean, facilitating projects spanning development, construction, management, leasing, financing and operations. Last year, Krahe handled more than 350 real estate transactions valued at more than $1.5 billion, building on a 2022 caseload with more than 300 matters under his supervision. He oversees all real estate transactions the firm is involved in and communicates with clients and manages their expectations. He approaches his practice as an entrepreneur who understands how to interact with clients to encourage them to keep him on board to handle legal needs tied to their business operations long term. Some of his most high-profile matters in the past year include representing a 200-key Miami Beach hotel/condominium mixed-use developer in property acquisition, financing, governance structures and operating agreements including management, telecom, amenities access, facilities support and sales/marketing licenses. He also represented owners acquiring/entitling a 70-unit Sarasota mixed-use condo in a transaction valued at more than $200 million. While his transaction volume is impressive, many of his proudest achievements come from leading and mentoring his team. Krahe’s entrepreneurial spirit drew him to the world of commercial real estate in the early stages of his career, in particular the transaction side, where he felt he could bring the most value to communities. He encourages newcomers to be on every call possible, to surround themselves with successful people and to learn from their losses.
Liam Krahe
Recently promoted to principal of portfolio management at BGO, Chris Kostyla serves as the assistant portfolio manager for the firm’s open-ended diversified US core fund, BGO Diversified. He leads the firm’s capital markets strategy, manages the debt for the fund and takes a lead role with consultants that monitor and advise certain investors on the fund. He is the youngest assistant portfolio manager at BGO. Kostyla is willing to take on additional responsibilities and do backend work. For example, in 2023 he helped execute all seven of BGO Diversified’s asset dispositions, including a five-asset industrial portfolio, resulting in more than $1 billion of aggregate proceeds. His proactive management helped maintain BGO Diversified’s balance sheet strength and reduce its overall outstanding debt by nearly $260 million. He also negotiated the second phase of BGO Diversified’s programmatic self-storage joint-venture with ExtraSpace Storage and led the review of all six investments in 2023, totaling $115 million. Kostyla’s start in the industry came when he was assigned to real estate and alternative investments at PwC after graduating college. Two years later, he joined the acquisitions team at Bentall Kennedy, now BGO, which allowed him to learn real estate underwriting, financial modeling, deal structuring, and due diligence across multiple asset classes. Following business school, Kostyla was a management consultant at Bain & Co. working on a variety of projects across multiple industries but continually found himself drawn back to the commercial real estate world, which led him to re-join BGO. He encourages younger colleagues to be curious and seek to understand the bigger picture outside their day-to-day responsibilities. “Understanding the bigger picture not only helps you in your current role but could help you identify another area of interest or passion within the industry,” he says.
Chris Kostyla
Michael Kolshak initially applied for a job as Cortland CEO Steven DeFrancis’ executive assistant. Though the position was not a good fit for him, it did get DeFrancis’ attention, and Kolshak was instead offered a role in the firm’s material procurement division, sourcing parts and fixtures for the firm’s value-add platform. In the nine years since he joined Cortland, Kolshak served in a variety of roles on the Cortland build team before transitioning to the investments team and being promoted to director of investments for the Mountain West and Dallas/Ft. Worth markets. He now serves as an EVP of investments, responsible for half of the Cortland Portfolio. Kolshak has sourced and closed nearly 24,000 apartment home units across 75 transactions with a total capitalization of $7.1 billion. One of his priorities has been cultivating the company’s future leaders. During his time in Dallas, he hired four new associates on the investments team, all of whom have since been promoted and continue to advance in responsibility within the firm. During high school and college, he worked on the maintenance team for OCD Management, which had a portfolio of apartments, light industrial properties and office buildings. After graduating, Kolshak leveraged his relationship with OCD owner Patrick O’Connor to get started in real estate. He started in brokerage in Atlanta, where he gained knowledge of income properties before his interest shifted to multifamily. Kolshak’s advice to those entering the industry is to get your foot in the door, keep your head down, and do good work. “Your initial job isn’t likely to be your dream job, but hard work and trying your best to exceed expectations pays dividends, especially over a sustained period of time,” he says.
Michael J. Kolshak
Berkadia managing director Cody Kirkpatrick co-founded the firm’s joint-venture equity and structured capital group and co-leads a team devoted exclusively to raising equity and structured capital from international and domestic qualified capital sources. Kirkpatrick has helped contribute to the capitalization of more than $6 billion across more than 100 property transactions, which comprises more than 22,000 multifamily, build-for-rent units and student housing beds across 22 states. Recently, Kirkpatrick and his team forged an alliance between Berkadia and the world’s largest privately owned capital markets platform Knight Frank. The JVE team collaborates frequently with Knight Frank, leveraging relationships and injecting overseas capital into US projects. He also arranged a programmatic equity partner for Sterling Group for the recapitalization of three communities totaling 875 units in South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee and sourced $55.5 million in joint-venture equity and preferred equity for developer Hyphen Communities to build two new multifamily communities in Phoenix totaling 358 units. Kirkpatrick has developed expertise in structuring preferred equity behind GSE lenders as well as in the ground-up construction space having closed more than 40 transactions alongside his team. He started his real estate career as a project manager for Vail Resorts Development Co. in Colorado and worked on mixed-use development projects at the base of Vail’s ski resort. However, his true passion within the real estate industry emerged following his completion of his MBA where he was able to combine his financial acumen and ability to establish meaningful relationships to help owners, operators and developers of real estate create joint-ventures capitalize their projects and see their vision come to life.
Cody Kirkpatrick
Emily Kelly started her career teaching at a low-income school in the District of Columbia Public School system as part of the Teach for America program. After three years, she decided to become a lawyer. She began her legal career as a litigator with Foster Pepper PLLC, and later transitioned to the firm’s real estate practice group, where she thrived in a transactional real estate role. Kelly moved to Stoel Rives LLP in 2019. As a partner in the firm’s real estate practice, she handles complex transactions involving the acquisition, disposition, development, financing and leasing of office, retail, industrial and multifamily projects. Last year, she worked on more than 158 matters, leading 89 of them and representing many of the country’s largest developers, investors and tech companies in commercial real estate transactions. In 2022, she represented Vulcan Real Estate in the sale of the Lakefront Blocks, a 635,000-square-foot office development in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, leased to Google. The $802 million sale price set a new per-square-foot record for Seattle office assets. Kelly also counsels Washington State’s Port of Everett in its development of Waterfront Place Central, a 65-acre, $650 million mixed-use development that is part of the port’s brownfield redevelopment project. She serves as co-chair of the firm’s Real Estate Industry Group’s Market Visibility Subcommittee and is a formal mentor to junior attorneys. Active in the Washington State Bar Association’s Real Property Section, Kelly presents courses on subleasing, sale-leasebacks and leasing purchase options. She advises rising attorneys to find mentors with practices they wish to emulate who can provide training and opportunities for career-advancing work. She also recommends real estate attorneys work on a high volume of transactions early in their careers to develop skills and to join industry organizations to cultivate relationships in the real estate community.
Emily Kelly
While most bankers specialize geographically or by execution, Berkadia managing director Michael Slovitt has instead chosen to find capital solutions for a wide variety of business plans across the country. He has capitalized on ground-up podium urban high rises to ground-up stick build-to-rent products in secondary locations. He has financed student housing projects on and off campus at Power five conference schools and smaller universities. In addition, he has helped capitalize existing products that are going through a gut renovation, or a lower lift value add plan. Overall, Slovitt has capitalized more than 200 transactions representing more than $3 billion of commercial real estate in 24 different states with 46 different capital sources. After receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 2010, Slovitt joined Berkadia as an intern. Proving himself valuable and continuing to perform beyond his age, he is now one of the youngest employees in the company to reach the role of managing director. He enjoys traveling to multiple markets throughout the country and learning different demand drivers and cultures, and he appreciates the intersection of personal nature and quantitative analysis of the business. Amid a global pandemic and the recovery, Slovitt put together record-setting years and led the firm’s Chicago office in production. He pushes the traditional mold by closing non-cash flowing projects, adaptive re-use projects and tax credit projects, and he was one of the first bankers in the country to close on an opportunity zone project. Slovitt has continued to build on his success and was recently invited to Berkadia’s CEO Circle for top performers in the company. A piece of advice Slovitt has for those interested in joining the industry is to always focus on learning as much as possible. “Do not focus on pay or titles,” he says. “Experience and being well-networked should always be your North Star.”
Michael Slovitt
Greysteel director Jeremy Slocumb runs a bespoke middle- market joint-venture equity and structured finance practice from the firm’s Dallas office focused on Southeast residential investments. He arranges capital in the $3 million to $20 million equity check range generally considered to be below the institutional threshold. Leaning into sponsors facing a transition phase in their business, Slocumb uses financial empathy to create asset-level solutions for entity-level challenges. He also is responsible for advising Greysteel’s clients across its various business lines on market trends within the equity space. His output as a top performer was recognized in his 2022 appointment to Greysteel’s president’s club, which acknowledges the top 10 producers nationally for the firm. Notable recent transactions include securing a programmatic joint-venture equity partner for a Southeast-based developer’s build-to-rent pipeline equating to more than $50 million in committed capital, providing $14 million of joint-venture equity to acquire a three-property value-add portfolio in North Texas, and structuring a Co-GP partnership to fund pursuit, horizontal, and balance sheet requirements for the development of a 20-story $175 million high-rise in River North, Denver. His advice to young professionals is to approach their career in commercial real estate with a combination of passion, dedication, and strategic thinking while remaining adaptable to the evolving demands of the market.
Jeremy Slocumb
Described as creative, disciplined and passionate to succeed, Phoebe Slater has been responsible for more than 50% of Getty Realty Corp.’s acquisition volume during the past few years. Since joining the company, Slater has advanced from director of development to senior director of acquisitions to VP of acquisitions. In this role, she is focused on car wash, automotive parts and service retailers and sourced and closed $350 million in transactions, including sale-leaseback and development funding. Slater has also been a leader in the company’s use of technology and systems to enhance productivity and efficiency and has made valuable contributions to policy and procedure improvements. Attending NYU graduate studies in real estate development brought Slater to New York City. There she assumed the role of senior manager of development for an institutional real estate owner. Having found her passion for delivering quality real estate projects and a commitment to grow professionally and broaden her experience has made her successful in multiple real estate disciplines. She advises young professionals that to be successful is to be willing to be versatile, balance linear thinking and problem-solving logic with creativity, and a focus on relationship management. Success in real estate is a long game and a positive personal reputation and brand are critical, she says.
Phoebe Slater
Northmarq regional managing director Mike Sladich is the youngest commercial office lead and one of the youngest commercial team leads at the firm. Sladich was also the youngest member of the inaugural partner program at Stan Johnson Co., now part of Northmarq, in 2020. He took over as the managing director of the Atlanta office in 2021 and has grown the office to the second-highest-producing office in the commercial firm in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Sladich leads Northmarq’s Southeast net lease team and is the commercial investment sales leader of Northmarq’s Georgia and Florida offices. He is responsible for all aspects of the team’s production including his personal production, goal setting, mentoring and coaching associates and analysts, and providing marketing resources. His team was one of the first in the country to prioritize collaboration with value-add shopping center owners to monetize their existing net lease outparcels by bifurcating them from the inline center to take advantage of lower cap rates. This strategy has now become mainstream with many shopping center brokers. Sladich was recruited while in a Regus office space that also housed Stan Johnson’s fledgling Atlanta office. He started as an associate with business development as his sole responsibility, making more than 100 cold calls per day to high-net-worth investors trying to win their business on the listing side. He quickly learned how to build rapport over the phone and speak the language of triple net lease investing. “My best advice is to find a company and more specifically a mentor who has a vested interest in your success,” says Sladich. “Take the opportunities you are given and utilize them to your best ability, while also raising your hand to take on more when the requests come from above. You will be noticed, and you will continue to get openings to further your career.”
Mike Sladich
Since joining MVA in 2015, Richard Simons has emerged as a leader in the firm’s commercial real estate group, building a practice representing CRE firms owning, leasing, managing and operating all asset classes. In 2021, he was elected to the firm’s membership. Described as a pragmatic problem solver, Simons offers advice to clients on complex matters, including acquisitions, diligence, leasing, condominium, land planning and dispositions. He serves as lead counsel on the landlord side for all office leasing in Charlotte for the leading real estate investment firm in the Southeast and also is the lead for a privately held REIT focused on federally leased properties throughout the country. Both clients have large-scale, complex portfolios that require a great deal of his attention. While many law firms have pro bono programs geared toward serving litigation needs, Simons saw a need on the transactional side. He collaborated with another firm to establish the Charlotte Legal Initiative to Mobilize Businesses, which engages volunteer attorneys to provide legal counsel on non-litigation business law matters to low-income business owners in under-resourced local communities. Commercial real estate law was a natural progression from Simons’ undergraduate finance studies and business concentration in law school. He believes in taking a reasonable and pragmatic approach with his clients and has worked to instill the same approach to his attorney mentees. As a mentor, he has provided advice to junior colleagues on achieving a successful work-life balance and business development best practices. He teaches younger attorneys to recommend reasonable amendments and accommodations for short terms, and to show understanding for individuals and companies operating in a difficult commercial real estate environment.
Richard Simons
Sean Silverbrook played a significant role in launching BEB Lending, the finance platform of BEB Capital, in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. The platform was established to provide the market with private, quick and creative finance solutions in primary and secondary markets nationwide with loans up to $50 million. Under Silverbrook’s leadership, BEB Lending surpassed $100 million in capital deployed in 2022 and deployed an additional $100 million in 2023. Silverbrook also was instrumental in launching BEB Capital’s credit fund, BEB Credit Opportunity Fund, L.P., which is actively deploying capital in 2024 and 2025. Through this fund, BEB Credit is seeking to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns, backed by diversified real estate loans to high-quality sponsors in the US. Silverbrook is a 16-year industry veteran with more than $1 billion in commercial real estate loans transacted nationwide. He joined BEB Capital in 2020 as VP of BEB Lending and leads the origination and management of new loans throughout their life cycle. He also helps oversee the division’s day-to-day operations. Previously, Silverbrook was director of originations at Maxim Group and director at Stabillis Capital Management. During his time at Maxim Group, Silverbrook led the underwriting of the full gamut of commercial real estate financing vehicles nationwide, including bridge loans. He helped lead the launch of a commercial real estate bridge lending division for Stabillis Capital Management. Silverbrook owned an investment advisory firm for several years after The Great Recession. Silverbrook’s advice is to always be networking. Every opportunity he has had has been through connections, including his first job, he says. Throughout his career, he has always believed that it never hurts to ask as the worst someone can say is no.
Sean Silverbrook
Peachtree Group principal and president of CRE credit Daniel Siegel has been immersed in the real estate business since he was young. He learned from his father, a prominent Atlanta real estate attorney, and chose to pursue a career in the business after graduating from Tulane in 2008. During the past 16 years, Siegel has been involved in more than $5 billion of real estate transactions including shopping malls, hotels, movie studios, land development and mixed-use developments. He began his career with a brief stint at a leading brokerage house in New York and then landed at Rialto Capital where he rose through the ranks to a position overseeing the company’s acquisitions of distressed debt. During this tenure at Rialto, he purchased and oversaw several thousand loans totaling more than $3 billion. In 2014, Siegel joined Ardent Cos. to build and manage its debt platform. He grew the business to a managed portfolio of more than 100 loans and a book value of $1.5 billion. In 2022, he became a partner at Peachtree tasked with expanding its lending platform beyond its hospitality focus. His team has closed more than $700 million in less than two years. Siegel serves as a mentor and started an analyst training program with bi-weekly lunch and learns to teach recent graduates the many facets of the industry. He tells those entering the industry: “This is the last chance in your life to unabashedly ask questions, don’t waste it – later people are going to want you to have the answers. Find the people who are willing to invest their time in your growth – sometimes it’s not in the places you would expect, but there is so much to be gained from the coworkers and supervisors who are willing to teach you.”
Daniel Siegel
Kabir Seth witnessed the power of large-scale urban planning transform a small fishing village in Dubai where he grew up into a global economic powerhouse in just 10 years. Inspired, he began a career in investment banking and immersed himself in real estate. Since joining Bay Area development firm Presidio Bay, Seth has helped the organization build a portfolio totaling 5.3 million square feet of new construction and adaptive reuse valued at nearly $5.6 billion of office, life-science, multifamily and mixed-use offerings. This year, he is co-founding and assuming the role of COO of Presidio Bay’s newest venture, The Main Post Inc., which offers bespoke and elevated asset optimization, asset management and property management services to third-party owners. As a principal, Seth is involved in all Presidio Bay operations, including new business development, fundraising, financial underwriting, entitlements, design and construction management, community outreach, asset management, finance and investor relations. In September 2023, Seth and Presidio Bay officially celebrated the grand opening of Springline, a mixed-use development that transformed Menlo Park into one of the Bay Area’s top live, work and play destinations. He also leads the Presidio Bay Foundation and its programs, including Presidio Scholars and the Developing Professional Accelerator. “As humans, we tend to overestimate what we can achieve in a year, and underestimate what we can achieve within ten years,” he says. “This is the biggest impediment to success because we often give up on our dreams right as they are on the cusp of unfolding. Real estate development requires the highest level of patience and preparation, with career-defining opportunities that present themselves less than 1% of the time.” He encourages newcomers to pick a starting point, be open to learning and meeting new people, and explore new ideas even if they don’t go anywhere today.
Kabir Seth
As the youngest partner at Anchor Health Properties, Elliott Sellers has led or been involved in more than 150 distinct transactions totaling $3 billion and 2.5 million square feet of healthcare real estate investments. One noteworthy investment for Sellers was the acquisition of the Shady Grove Professional Center in Rockville, MD, where he helped negotiate the off-market acquisition of the two-building, 103,000-square-foot outpatient campus in 2018 and subsequent disposition in 2022. Working with joint-venture partners and building tenancy, Sellers executed on several new leasing, building renovation, and renewal initiatives culminating in a value creation of more than $15 million upon disposition. Sellers oversees the firm’s investment team and leads business development efforts for the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southern California and Pacific Northwest regions. He frequently participates in healthcare executive roundtables and speaks at industry conferences. In addition, he is an inaugural member of the Revista Rising Leadership Council which consists of key leaders in the healthcare real estate sector. Sellers has also been actively involved with his alma mater, James Madison University, supporting the university’s Society of Real Estate and students seeking education on commercial real estate and career-related discussions. His decision to pursue a career in commercial real estate was driven by an interest in deal-making, investing and the potential to shape communities. Starting with an investment sales internship at HFF provided him with a broad perspective on the sector and highlighted the importance of patience and resilience in navigating the complexities of the industry. “Early on, I learned that success in commercial real estate hinges significantly on developing relationships early and often,” says Sellers. “For newcomers, I recommend focusing on establishing strong, genuine connections within the industry, as these relationships will be crucial to navigating and succeeding in the field.”
Elliott Sellers
As the manager of the tenant representation department at Crawford Square Real Estate Advisors, Erik Schatz is responsible for leading a team focused on retail and restaurant site selection. Under Schatz’s leadership, the department has experienced significant growth, from representing one client to working with various local, regional and national retailers on their expansions in Alabama and Mississippi. He oversees property management, leasing, contract negotiation, market analysis and site selection for shopping center owners, restaurants and retailers. Schatz manages the leasing efforts on five properties in Crawford’s portfolio totaling more than one million square feet, and he has completed more than $40 million in lease and purchase transactions across the Southeast. Known for crafting creative solutions that go beyond traditional deal-making, Schatz has negotiated more than $750,000 in tax incentives for developments in underserved markets. Personal interest in CRE and early professional experience cemented Schatz’s career choice. He saw commercial real estate as a dynamic and rewarding field offering opportunities for personal and professional growth. Schatz advises industry newcomers to gain hands-on experience in various aspects of commercial real estate, whether through internships, entry-level positions or mentorship programs. “Practical experience is invaluable for learning the ropes and understanding the nuances of the industry,” he says.
Erik Schatz
Trent Saunders, senior advisor at SVN | Saunders Ralston Dantzler, has established a niche in the CRE industry by specializing in farm and ranchland deals. His journey began under the tutelage of one of SVN’s competitors and his father, Dean Saunders, both of whom offered contrasting approaches to the business. By synthesizing these methodologies, Saunders has developed a strategy that prioritizes transparency and honesty in client interactions and has yielded more than $86 million in sales across four transactions in the past year. Most of his deals involve brokering conservation easements in which land owners sell their development rights to the State of Florida or state agencies for development management purposes. He grew up hunting, viewing real estate properties with his father and grandfather, and participating in Boy Scouts. He saw a career in commercial real estate, particularly a specialization in income-producing ranch and farmland, not only as a family legacy but a choice rooted in his deep connection to the land. He secured a real estate license before graduating with a degree in Citrus at Florida Southern. Saunders is driven by a passion for preserving Florida’s land for future generations while also sharing his knowledge with the next generation of CRE professionals. For those considering entering the commercial real estate industry, Saunders stresses the importance of being financially prepared for the initial stages when making money is not always immediate. The path to success in commercial real estate requires being a self-starter with resilience, he says. “Success in commercial real estate demands patience, dedication and a strong work ethic, but for those who are passionate and prepared, the rewards can be substantial.”
Trent Saunders
Ari Sasson never intended to pursue a career in commercial real estate. In fact, he earned a master’s degree in counterterrorism and homeland security from Reichman University, but after working in that industry for a while, he realized it wasn’t a good fit for him. His family’s roots in real estate investing persuaded him to consider a career change, and after living in different cities, he returned to his home state of New York to pursue his new career. Sasson earned a second master’s degree in real estate finance and began his career at Deloitte prior to helping establish Tricera and then Torose Equities in Florida. Under his leadership as CFO, Torose has emerged as one of the leading commercial real estate firms in the Southeastern US. Sasson played a key role in the growth of the emerging investment firm and is primarily responsible for operations, company accounting and investor relations. He also handles Torose’s acquisitions including deal underwriting, due diligence, financing, asset management and property management. Prior to Torose, he served as CFO of Tricera Capital where he was instrumental in the acquisition of more than 30 assets totaling $700 million in assets under management in just five years. Sasson is a strategic thinker and enjoys the opportunity to give back to the community as much as he receives from it. His advice to newcomers is to prioritize their relationships in the industry. He believes that involvement in charitable organizations is the best way to secure positive and helpful relationships and while networking is important, it is also key to be at the forefront of efforts that promote giving back to the communities in which one is looking to invest.
Ari Sasson
Anoush Sarkissian was born in Armenia and moved to the US as a young child with her family after the 1988 Spitak earthquake devastated the northern part of the country. While her parents were engineers in Armenia, when they moved to the US, they worked at low-paying jobs. Sarkissian watched her parents become successful small-business owners and her father would ask for her help reading real estate contracts and leases when he began investing in properties, which piqued her interest in both business and law and prompted her to pursue a career in real estate law. Having seen both the business and legal side of real estate, she advocates for her clients in a commercial manner as counsel at Skadden. She has broad experience ranging from traditional work to intricate private equity and M&A transactions and runs large, complex, multifaceted transactions with many of the most sophisticated clients and counterparties in the real estate, corporate real estate and private equity space. As an immigrant woman and a mother, Sarkissian fosters and promotes the firm’s DEI goals and organizes and leads events, such as “Fostering Women Leadership at Skadden.” She also is active in the Skadden Los Angeles Mother’s Group, where she launched a new initiative to support parents prior to leave and upon their return. Sarkissian maintains an active pro bono practice, advising clients on real estate and other matters. The advice she would offer to those entering the industry would be to think creatively and be adaptable. “The commercial real estate market is experiencing a period of adjustment following COVID-19,” she says. “While there is instability, it is important to think outside of the box and adapt to the change.”
Anoush Sarkissian
After more than 15 years as a successful commercial real estate broker, Drew Sanden and his business partner Scott Maples recognized an opportunity to create a coworking solution and created TailoredSpace and SimplerSpace. For Sanden, years working with landlords and tenants gave him insight into office market challenges. That’s why when an office landlord Sanden worked with needed ideas to fill a challenging-to-lease space in West Covina, the property became the incubator for the coworking concept. His responsibilities include managing financial reporting, landlord relationships and general business strategy and direction as well as developing and expanding landlord and broker relationships and overseeing the underwriting and construction process of new sites. TailoredSpace recently opened its eighth location and SimplerSpace operates sites in two cities. Previously, Sanden was a senior managing director with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank for more than seven years and a broker with Cushman & Wakefield. Sanden started his career as an office leasing broker with CBRE in the Inland Empire. The most valuable advice he received when starting his career was to become an expert. This has proven invaluable as TailoredSpace was created out of his deep knowledge of the supply and demand issues in suburban office markets.
Drew Sanden
At the age of 36, Marc Rutzen has already built and sold a PropTech startup, held a C-suite position at a publicly traded company, and is currently serving as CEO and co-founder of an AI-powered multifamily analytics platform, HelloData.ai. After completing a master of science degree in real estate development from Columbia University and obtaining a managing real estate broker license in Illinois, Rutzen spent the first five years of his career in real estate development, investment and brokerage. After manually cobbling together market data for a wide array of multifamily deals, he realized how inefficient and manual the real estate industry was. He was one of the early founders in the PropTech industry, launching his first startup, Enodo, in 2016 and focusing the industry’s attention on the impact machine learning and data visualization could have on traditional real estate processes. Enodo, which focused on automating the real estate underwriting process with machine learning, was sold to Walker & Dunlop in 2019 for its data extraction capabilities. After the acquisition, Rutzen led Walker & Dunlop’s data science, product, and customer success teams as SVP of information technology before being promoted to chief product officer in 2021. Last year, Rutzen joined HelloData.ai as CEO to accelerate the company’s growth in the real estate space. The company was co-founded by his former teammates at Enodo, Tim Gamble and Nicolas Lassaux. Day to day, Rutzin works with real estate investors, analysts and underwriters, helping them adopt today’s technologies to improve accuracy, efficiency and deal-making.
Marc Rutzen
Akerman LLP partner Paul Russo first became interested in commercial real estate in law school during a property law class. He knew he wanted to be a transactional attorney rather than a litigator and reached out to dozens of attorneys who were alumni of his law school and worked as CRE attorneys in Chicago. Eventually, one of those attorneys took a chance on him and offered him a position as an associate attorney. In his first job, he obtained significant first-chair experience managing all different types of real estate deals and today he represents several retailers in connection with the negotiation of complex retail leases in high-end retail developments throughout the US. He also represents many developers and real estate investment funds specializing in retail real estate. One of Russo’s greatest professional achievements was representing a Chicago developer in all aspects of the development of a showroom and office building for the furniture company Herman Miller. On behalf of the developer/owner, Paul handled the initial joint-venture negotiations, acquisition of the land, negotiation of a long-term lease, construction financing and ultimate disposition of the Herman Miller project, which sold for one of the highest prices per-square-foot in Chicago history. Russo’s enthusiasm for the firm and the younger generation of lawyers is apparent as a member of the Akerman associate training committee, where he assists in training associates from both legal and work-life balance perspectives. He also serves as a mentor for two associates in the Akerman Chicago office. The advice he offers those entering the industry is to attend industry functions and be an active participant in organizations. “It sounds cliché, but commercial real estate is absolutely a relationship business,” he says. “Starting early and building relationships with others in this field will pay dividends in the future.”
Paul Russo
Cody Ruegger is most in his element when he is running deals with innovative legal and commercial relationships. For instance, he was essential in helping Safehold accomplish a novel transaction for the redevelopment of an inner city mall into a retail, office and life-science laboratory mixed-use facility through the use of both traditional construction loan financing and nontraditional construction ground lease financing. The transaction involved many unique issues arising from the dual role the client played in the capital stack, the conversion of the use of the asset, and the creation of a bespoke commercial condominium structure. A counsel in Skadden’s New York real estate group, Ruegger has quickly distinguished himself as a key contributor on clients’ most important real estate transactions and is valued for his effective communication and negotiating skills. He has general responsibility over all legal matters of real estate transactions and serves as the client’s main point of contact on the Skadden deal team. He acts as the lead attorney for developers, management companies, public companies, REITs, institutional investors, private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, and high-net-worth individuals on single-asset acquisitions and dispositions, restructurings, financings, joint-ventures, ground leases and office leases. Ruegger is involved in attorney development at Skadden and is proud that many associates in his group have taken his open-door policy to heart and consider him to be their first stop whenever they have professional questions. He has two pieces of related advice for any aspiring real estate attorney. The first is to be comfortable with yourself, and the second is to have a cohort around whom you can be yourself. “Legal acumen is important, but it is just as essential for an attorney to lead with confidence and poise,” he says.
Cody A. Ruegger
Alex Rossinsky has built a noteworthy career during the past 10 years through expertise in underwriting, financial analysis, client management and transaction structure. He has sourced and closed more than $6 billion in real estate transactions during the past seven years. Rossinsky has advanced from SVP of the Davies structured finance team at George Smith Partners to executive director of WAY Capital Inc., a capital advisory firm specializing in arranging complex financings for entrepreneurial and institutional commercial real estate sponsors. Rossinsky played a pivotal role in WAY’s successful launch two years ago and recently became a principal in the firm. His interest in puzzles and complex problem-solving has helped him handle unique, one-off and less conventional transactions that require special attention and focus. His active deals include a $300 million recapitalization of a build-to-rent portfolio located in the Phoenix metropolitan area on behalf of a private developer, an $800 million recapitalization of a portfolio of high-rise residential buildings throughout the US on behalf of an institutionally owned fund, and an $80 million debt and equity advisory engagement for a 299-unit mixed-use development near Salt Lake City on behalf of a private family. In addition to being a founding member of WAY Capital, Rossinsky transformed its underwriting and marketing process while the team was still at George Smith Partners by developing an institutional-quality internal underwriting process designed to accommodate the nuances of complex and unique projects. The revamped underwriting process has been instrumental in some of WAY Capital’s most complex transactions, providing the firm the ability to be agile in an ever-changing market landscape and make recommendations quickly. Before joining WAY’s team, Rossinsky was part of a team at Crescent Communities where he was responsible for more than $600 million in residential master-planned communities and luxury resort assets.
Alex Rossinsky
Michael Ritz began his career in hotel operations but came to realize commercial real estate presented an opportunity to combine his interests in hospitality with his passion for finance while learning the art and science of generating return on capital investments. His first real estate role was as a financial analyst for the national director of Marcus and Millichap’s national hotel group, a role he secured through a cold email. Shortly after he joined Peachtree Group as a senior analyst seven years ago, his direct boss who was responsible for all hotel acquisitions was diagnosed with cancer. Ritz stepped up to support both his boss and the rest of the team, bridging a large gap within the organization until his boss returned to work. He gained significant experience at a young age and accelerated his career as an unintended consequence. Ritz is responsible for managing capital allocation, investment strategy and credit for Peachtree Group’s debt and equity investments. He is also actively involved in managing operations and execution of the firm’s hotel acquisition, hotel lending and hotel development companies. Throughout his tenure, he has closed 400 investments at a value of $7 billion in total capitalization across real estate acquisition, development, joint-venture, lending and note purchases. When COVID-19 hit, significantly impacting the hotel assets, Ritz stepped in to help the company asset manage while transactions in the equity markets were interrupted. When Peachtree found opportunities to purchase loan pools from large banks, Ritz educated himself and his team to value and execute the investments, which led him to develop a new opportunistic trade – distressed debt investment. From Q3 2020 to 2022, Ritz led the origination, valuation and execution of nearly $1.4 billion in distressed loan acquisitions, nearly doubling the firm’s assets under management at the time.
Michael Ritz
Michael Riopel’s decision to pursue a career in commercial real estate was deeply influenced by his father. Riopel was actively involved in the family’s real estate endeavors, even answering tenant calls as early as age 5. This early exposure not only cultivated his interest in the field but also instilled in him a strong work ethic and a deep appreciation for the industry’s multifaceted nature. Today, Riopel is assistant general counsel for Northwestern Mutual, overseeing up to $1.5 billion of real estate transactions annually. His responsibilities encompass a wide spectrum of complex real estate dealings, including financing, development projects and asset management. He leverages his previous experience working in-house for a commercial real estate development and investment firm, where he managed an extensive loan portfolio, investor and financial institution relationships, and oversaw the disposition of real estate assets. Riopel is involved in the NAIOP Research Foundation and chairs its visionaries committee. In the past three years, Riopel launched the MKE CRE High School Real Estate Immersion summer program targeted at underrepresented high school students. For those entering the industry, Riopel advises embracing every opportunity to learn and grow. He emphasizes the importance of gaining practical experience and understanding the various facets of commercial real estate, from property management to investment strategies.
Michael L. Riopel
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